Leveraging Leadership

Switching Lanes: Finding Your Stride as a Chief of Staff

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 171

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Melissa Yap shares her journey to becoming Chief of Staff at Deloitte, highlighting the shift from client-facing roles to internal strategic leadership. She discusses the challenges of embracing a less visible role and the unique perspective it offers, such as connecting diverse teams and driving strategic initiatives. Melissa explains how her experience in consulting and her proactive approach to connecting with other Chiefs of Staff globally enrich her current role.

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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:

00:58 Melissa's Journey to Chief of Staff
02:46 Early Challenges and Personal Growth
07:30 Deloitte's Global Structure
09:53 Connecting with Other Chiefs of Staff
13:55 Operational and Strategic Responsibilities
17:43 Prioritizing Strategic Initiatives
24:50 Writing the LinkedIn Article
28:41 Reflections on the Chief of Staff Role
34:36 Advice for Chiefs of Staff and Principals

Emily:

My guest today is Melissa Yap. Melissa, welcome to the show.

Mel:

Thank you for having me, Emily. It's a pleasure to be here.

Emily:

It's an honor to have you and you're the first guest on the show from Malaysia. So our international footprint and audience continues to grow, which I love. So thank you so much for being here, especially at odd hours.

Mel:

No, thank you so much. I really appreciate the ability to actually join your podcast. I've listened to quite many of them and I think being on it is like surreal, right? Like, thank you for having me.

Emily:

You're most welcome. So maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and your path to being chief of staff at Deloitte.

Mel:

Yeah. So thanks for asking that. I mean, um, I think that is a little bit of a personal story. Um, and I read the book that you have. In fact, I have it here with me.

Emily:

There we go.

Mel:

So 11 of the thing that I really like about how you describe the role is, um, That when you buy a six pack of soda cans and you have that plastic ring that binds them together, I think that really resonated, especially for me at the beginning when I took up the role because like you rightfully said in your book, we don't actually represent any distinct function or leader of any parts of the function in the organization. In the first maybe 6 months of my role, I was actually trying to figure out how to not overshadow or outshine these cans of sodas, but instead provide the structure and support to keep them aligned, balanced, and all moving in the same direction that we are all serving the principles that we are, we are working with, right, in the organization. Um, in fact, when I step into this role, Prior to that, I was already working in the organization. I was already with Deloitte Consulting. Um, and I was on a different path, whereby I was a director in the energy and resources space, uh, working very closely with our client, providing advisory, consulting services, um, for, um, Oil and gas mining utilities type of clients, right? So when I took this role, it's a very big shift, right? So instead of continuing to serve clients and be at the forefront of the business, I basically took a sort of backseat, if you will, to look back into the practice operations. And how this is so personal is that when I first began this role, I didn't even update my LinkedIn position for the first six months. I wasn't very

Emily:

LinkedIn. I'm going

Mel:

wasn't sure. I know. I was half hearted about the role. I was not sure. In fact, when I have the conversation with my principal at that time, I If I'm honest, a candid conversation I had with her, I was like, I'm going to stay in this role for a year. And then I was dead set on going back to my original career path, right? My plan was to use this as like a stabbing stone. Um, and, and, and nothing more, right? Um, but I guess there's, there's this one incident, right? Because our, our business actually operates regionally. So I was on a flight quite recently. Quite frequently and I remember being on a flight one day and I catch a sight of a rainbow But what struck me different was that I was looking down at the rainbow instead of like gazing up at the sky like how you Normally see a rainbow So in that moment, it felt like a revelation, right? It is it's like a reminder of how this role it has an elevated perspective And when I look back into the journey and the the the visibility that I was fortunately given And the trust that the leadership team as well as my principal actually entrust me entrusted me on in this role. I am positioned to see the bigger picture. I am able to connect the dots. I am able to view challenges from a vantage point that others might not have. Right. Um, if you think of like a CEO or a CFO, they are specifically function subject matter in finance, in strategy, in operations. Right. In a professional services firm like ours, even if you are in the client service, which was my original career path, right? We are also a subject matter in our own function, right? For example, I was a subject matter in the energy and resources space. We would have people who focus on the financial services industry or consumer business or telecommunications, right? But what actually enabled me in this position is to have that broad perspective of what do we. mean when we say we go to market with all range of diverse perspective right across services and offerings and across industries. So I think as I began immersing myself in this role, I realized how much I enjoyed being at the center of strategic decision making. Um, it's not that different from my client service days, right? Because when, as a, as a consultant at heart, we go to our client, we look at Specific problem that they usually will come to us for consulting advisories, right? We are also trying to look at the strategic decision making or the operational problem solving that we need to actually provide to the client. But what is different is that I'm now currently doing that same for my own organization. So, so that that was incredibly fulfilling, right? Because I can see it happen. Uh, rather than being a consultant outside in and we go into a project with the client, we give them a blueprint, we give them an advice and ultimately the project will come to an end. Right? So we would leave. The advice will, uh, and the blueprint to the client to execute it further from there. Sometimes we don't even know whether it works or not, right? But what's different is that within my own organization, I have to make it work. We have to make it

Emily:

Yep.

Mel:

I guess, I guess that's, that, that actually taught me an event, like invaluable lessons, right? And the hesitation that I had in initially, um, change, uh, Very drastically, even though it has only been about six 18 months, right? One and a half years that have been in the role is a is a very immersive. It's a very fulfilling responsibilities, and I'm learning along the way, right? And I'm still learning every other day. I think I think this this whole above the rainbow elevated perspective actually sort of like give me that revelation that I think is good. Um, and that's basically just the sort of personal story and how it came to about.

Emily:

Wow. Thank you for sharing. Yes. So much good stuff in there. So I love the part about you brought your consulting that you did for external clients and you pointed that inwards to your own company and you were able to develop a plan and also execute and see the results. So that's fantastic. I love the rainbow analogy. Never heard that one. So I'm glad you had that for us. flight and that revelation. And then I love the, your take on the six pack cans of soda where it's like, don't outshine the cans. Just let the cans themselves and stay out of their way. So love all of that. Thank you so much for, for sharing. Just for further context at Deloitte, I mean we have, I'm in the U S so we have Deloitte Americas I guess, but is that original by, is it like an APAC and then a country specific outfit? How does that work?

Mel:

Yeah, so again, thanks for the question, right? Deloitte is a global firm. I think a lot of people may actually hear about the name. Um, There are, there are, there are different member firms, we call it, right, in different regions. So, as you rightfully pointed out, there's the Deloitte U. S. member firm, and where I operate is in Southeast Asia, right? So, in Southeast Asia, we are kind of uniquely positioned in the sense that we are not one country. Uh, in fact, Deloitte Consulting, where I belong, actually operates across eight different countries in the Southeast Asia region. However, what is actually, um, unique about us is that Because we come together as one integrated organization across the eight countries, we function as one cohesive team. What we do is we share resources, expertise, and strengths. So regardless of whether the client is operating in Singapore or Thailand or Indonesia, we can bring the best of our resources and the best of our expertise and experiences, either from. Vietnam or Myanmar, wherever that means to deliver the best outcomes for our clients, right? So in that sense, um, we, we, we actually help our clients, our organizations navigate that complexity by bringing the best of our network. So that's basically the construct of how we run the business in Southeast Asia. However, Having the Deloitte brand globally, uh, means that we are also bringing not just the regional Southeast Asia experience, but also the global perspective outside in, so that's how we basically connect between Southeast Asia to APEC, to Europe, to US, um, and so on, right? So that seamless network, um, of specialists, innovative solutions actually gets help us tailor on our clients needs, right? What I would also say is that because of the construct of how Deloitte is actually set up, it helped me in this role that I'm playing as well in the chief of staff, right? So in the past, when I was serving clients in my consulting hat, we reach out for specific advice if we are going niche into a specific topic. What I can do now, carrying the title of a chief of staff, serving my principal, who is basically the regional managing partner of the consulting Um, I connect with the COS or the chief of staff equivalent in other member firms within Deloitte network, right? So, um, Using that, I can actually just go on LinkedIn and people would respond, right? And I was actually quite surprised with that, right? Um, I managed to actually connect with someone from Deloitte, India and understand the chief of staff was supporting the CEO in India, for example, right? And similar, similarly in Australia, similarly in the US, right? And that's how, um, it's a little bit different from my previous experience because it's not particularly talking about. A solution that we've implemented to a client, but it's talking about how do we run, how do we help our principals and the organization run the business differently and each of these member firms have different size as well. Right. So although we are all Deloitte, um, some of us grew earlier, some of us grew a little bit later, right? So we are at a different stage of where the business are and how that means. And how do we support each other? Right. So I guess that's, that's also one of the good thing that I realized this role actually brings.

Emily:

large multinational companies and surprisingly, not a lot of them have a chief of staff cohort or an official kind of where the chiefs of staff of this one company. And as you mentioned, like lots of different sizes and shapes and flavors of what that means worldwide, but it was surprising where these companies would have hundreds of chiefs of staff, but yet, no, I don't talk to another chief of staff. I just kind of. Stay in my lane and do my thing. It sounds like you proactively went and found these people and asked them questions and shared knowledge that helped you both, which is fantastic. Um, is there, is there any other mechanism besides you just being proactive and reaching out that you can connect with other chiefs of staff? Or is that, you know, Emily, some, some places call it chief of staff and some people call it a different, uh, Positions, you just kind of have to know who's who within each region.

Mel:

Yeah. So you're kind of spot on on that, right? The reason why I reach out proactively to your point is actually within the region I operate in within Southeast Asia, or I could also argue within APEC more broadly, the role is still very nascent, right? The role is still very new. And there are not a lot of chief of staff that actually move on or continued in that role that we could probably say that's the path that I'm going to take, right? Um, and because of that, I was curious. And because I put myself, I put my hands up and I said that I'm going to do this, but I was half hearted about it. I'm not sure if you're going to lead me somewhere. So I wanted to know what can we do, right? Um, and then I realized as I speak to more people outside of Southeast Asia, outside of APEC, that even though the role may be a bit more ubiquitous in other countries, in other regions, the definition of the role is still very different, right? And I kind of, um, My key takeaway at the moment, I think that the road differs depending on the size of the organization that you're in, the principal's leadership style, because dependent, it depends on whether that person is more of a delegator or more of an authoritative leader, right? I think that makes a very big difference. And, um, what happened is that when I speak to the different people, to your point, They all play slightly different role, right? Depending on where the organization is headed to and where the principal's leadership vision is headed to, they can be a chief of staff and also play a strategic project, strategic initiative, kind of role. That's probably one. The other way I can, I think of it, or I'm exposed to is, um, because the organization is probably a lot more stable and they are not in a transformative stage, then the chief of staff is probably. more similar towards the operating officer, a chief operating officer to enable the day to day to run, right? So what I, what I actually sort of take that back and actually apply back to my own, um, um, day to day, I see it as both, uh, on, on two hands, right? One is the day to day operations that needs to happen. Um, and because of the unique position that we are in as the chief of staff. We are basically able to see what's happening in each of the different industry and each of the different functions whereby you have very capable, very, um, good leaders who are leading each of the function, but they need to talk together. They need to talk to each other. That's one role that I think the chief of staff play, right? The other thing is communications. So as the organizations go bigger and larger, sometimes we take for granted that people would know. Right. Um, because I sent an email, right? People should read, right? Um, but we, we are, we are surprised sometimes that, you know, some of these communications There are multiple channels to it, right? So I am a more engineering background, right? So I don't, I don't use to appreciate so much about how mass communication means and what does it mean to run an organization in that sense, right? And if I extend that further, it's basically building or designing the culture of the organization. How do you want your people to actually align with the vision that you're setting, right? So that's one part of it that I'm thinking about, uh, or I'm actively executing. The other part is more strategic and more ad hoc, uh, as needed as, uh, as, as we require, right? So as we run the day to day, um, we might discover that things needs to improve. So part of the nature of being a consultant, we want to actually, you know, design a project and, and, and try to make things, uh, better, right? So then. That's where some special projects will come together. And the difference, I think, these kind of projects versus the ones that I used to do is basically these projects are at the higher level, right? So we don't design a project just to do a particular improvement on one process flow, right? So it needs to be the most transformational, the most, um, Prioritize project that will actually move the needle for the organizations, right? And most of the time this will include involve multiple functions and multi multiple teams within the organizations to come together. And that's actually a hard thing to do, right? So what I realize is that internal strategic special projects like that actually do take a longer time to execute, right? So if I wear my old consulting head, I would go and Design and sell this project for six weeks. And then I realized when I implement something internally, it probably takes six months, for example, right? It's not because we are not focused on it, right? It's also because we do have our day to day business as usual that we need to run, right? So that's that's basically like key takeaway that I think the two main things comes together. Uh, when I speak to different chief of staff around the world, right within Deloitte and also outside of Deloitte, right? So when I connected with some of the chief of staff, which are from other organizations, I think similar sentiments also come together.

Emily:

Yes. So certainly the operational and strategic components are happening in parallel. And just on the second piece you mentioned, so you said key strategic initiatives tend to take longer. I'm wondering, how do you. Determine which ones to prioritize, because a lot of chiefs of staff I speak to are like, Emily, I could do 17 things. Like 17 things are important to my leadership team. And at some point we as chiefs of staff have to pick, or we have to help someone decide we are not going to do these 16. We are going to focus on this one and get it across the finish line. So I'm just wondering from your perspective, how do you approach those decisions?

Mel:

Yeah. So I guess because as part of the role, one of the things that, um, I like how you write it in your book, right? We are basically measuring the trumpet or the heartbeat of the organization. Through all the cadence meetings that we need to set up, right? So be it a weekly cadence we are looking at in terms of how are we driving our sales and pipeline or monthly cadence on how we actually performing overall as a business in our money, business reviews, or even quarterly or yearly meeting that we come together, uh, either as a partner group or all staff group, right? In those drumbeat meetings, I think what actually makes sense is that you can actually connect the story of how the organization is growing or not. And with that, then what is actually important is, for example, in a people centric business like Deloitte or any professional services firm, right? Our main asset is people. So we don't manufacture iPhones, for example, right? We don't sell any products. We sell services, right? So in that sense, our people are our talent and our everything in order to bring the most to our clients, right? What Is one example of a of a of a prioritized initiative is when there is a when there's a challenge in, let's say, talent acquisition in recruitment of the right quality of people that is actually effectively going to hit our bottom line and top line, right? So, so I guess that's that's one of the ways that, um, I'm using the leadership that I'm supporting, the principle that I'm supporting are using to prioritize initiative. And for example, one of the key initiatives that I've run before, uh, as part of my role in as a chief of staff is that in a, in a, in a professional services firm like us, right, we were very dynamic sometimes, right? We, it's a little bit unpredictable in terms of the demand is a, is a delegate balance, right? So we need the people, the chicken and egg story, right? We need the people to, to deliver the services, but at the same time, if you're growing rapidly, Do we first bring in the people and then grow the business? Or do we bring the sales or the revenue and then bring in the people, right? And this is very real cost that we're talking about, right? In order to balance our people cost, right? We can't be hiring a lot of people. And then if our, if our front engine is not selling as fast, then these are actual costs that we need to manage. Right. So as part of that intricate challenge that we face, our recruitment and our talent acquisition needs to be very dynamic and agile in actually responding to that dynamic demand situation. So imagine if you are a recruiter in a firm, like a professional services firm, one day you're asked to bring in a hundred people, another break, you may be asked to actually stop or freeze that process for a while, right? And it's hard, right? Because the entire, um, Recruitment process takes time, right? To source for the the CVs, to process through the interview process, and then to, you know, negotiate through the offer letter, that itself takes time. So, um, what this key initiative is trying to do is to look into how we can be a bit more nimble and agile in setting up a team structure. That can support the business better, right? So we need to have a very important communication flow back to communication, right? Between the recruiter as well as our business, right? Because we cannot expect our recruiter to know the business as much as our business leaders. Vice versa. Uh, we also need to make sure that our business leaders are also feeding the right information back to our recruiters, right? So that is a design of both an org structure and a process, right? And streamlining a workflow that basically foster closer collaboration and stronger alignment between the team. So I guess, um, In embedding, we're still part. We're still part of the journey right now, right? So after we've designed it, we still need to embed these changes, monitor the outcome. But I guess the transformation is highlighting how operational efficiency and strategic alignment can drive growth and how it is actually very important to connect our people strategy to the business needs in real time.

Emily:

Yes. Thank you for that. I mean, it makes so much sense, especially for your business model where like your talent is, is critical. Like that's what you're selling to your clients. Um, and as you were describing that I was having flashbacks because a constant debate when I was chief of staff between our exec team was our, our hiring strategy. Are we hiring behind revenue or, um, in front of revenue and, you know, CEO who had a finance background was like, Sales prove to me that you can bring the revenue in and then we will support it. We'll do a fast follow and support it. And of course, sales wanted like support, support it and operations want it supported, support it ahead of time. And so there's this constant, um, push and pull. And I was on point for a lot of the hiring processes as you, it sounds like you are standing those up and building those processes to be streamlined. But yeah, I mean, I remember bringing candidates through the pipeline and hurry, hurry, hurry. And then. We're gonna freeze this position. I was like, no, we have some great candidates on the short list. Don't do this to me. Um, but, uh, you're absolutely right to call that out. So I want to go back to something that you mentioned earlier, which was when you first got this chief of staff role, you mentioned you were half hearted. About it, and at some point you wrote an article on LinkedIn and it has tremendous engagement and lots of people responded, but it's called demystifying the chief of staff role. My journey from engineering to strategic leadership and, um. Let me just read, I'm going to read this, the last paragraph, but then back into some of the things you said at the beginning. You said, it took me more than a year to fully embrace and understand the depth of this role. The first six months were especially challenging, filled with moments of self doubt as I adjusted to the demands and nuances of this new responsibility. But through persistence and reflection, I discovered how transformative the experience could be both professionally and personally. So first of all, thank you for sharing that. And especially calling out, look, the six months were challenging. Like I had self doubts because people kind of glaze over that type of thing and you called it out in your article. So thank you for that. Um, when did you write this article and what prompted you to do that?

Mel:

Yeah. So I think, um. Thanks for pointing out that article, right? In fact, if I could share a little bit more after I posted that article, uh, it actually expanded my connections a fair bit as well. So I've got, you know, people who are outside of, um, you know, connections or, or, or my proactiveness to reach out to Chief of Staff, right? They're aspiring Chief of Staffs or current Chief of Staffs who actually reach out because of the article across the world, right? Literally connected with people from Hong Kong, South Africa, UK, or even closer to home in Singapore. But what prompted that, that, uh, writing of the article is, um, when I moved into this role, um, the six months that I was full of self doubt, why was that? It's because I feel that it is such a big change, right? In terms of how I was working as a director in the firm, uh, and basically aspiring to become a partner, it's myself one day to basically run a business within the firm to something that is seen as more back office, um, and more, um, maybe supportive in nature, right? Uh, and that was basically that sort of self doubt that I think what's happening at the first six months of my, uh, my role, right? Um, I wasn't sure whether this is the right move. Which was also why I was like, okay, let's not, let's not update LinkedIn, you know, I just pretend it didn't happen. And I can come back to consulting or come back to what I was doing, right? But, um, as part of the role, I guess what actually prompted me was because I'm not just out there selling or delivering services to our professional services firm, I'm also actually making sure that there's a support pillar behind an organization. Like any other organization would have across the key different functions right across how we are managing our revenue, managing finances, managing our collection, billing, managing, even the scheduling of our staffs, managing even the recruitment that we just talked about. Those key support pillar functions are very, very important. And when we are out there at the front line, we tend to forget about these unsung heroes. I, I, I was guilty of that myself, right? Maybe it's a lack of, um, lack of visibility as well, right? Because we just take for granted that, you know, that it's just there, it's part of the organization, right? It just works, exactly, right? So I have a lot, a lot more appreciation of what the back office teams does after taking on this role, right? And, um, One of the things that actually struck me was that after I posted that article that you mentioned, I've gotten some comments from our back office team as well, right, from HR, from recruitment, that, you know, we resonate with that because that's how we feel as well, right? So in any organization, there will be the revenue generating arm for sure. Right. So if you're a bank, that would be your banking services. If you're a Coca Cola, it will be, you know, the selling of the product or the sales of the product, um, very often we forget about what makes the organization takes, right? What makes the organizations flow? I guess, um, that was, that was probably one of the prompting factor of why I was, uh, I was writing that article, right? And what I, what I. What I appreciate a lot more is that these coordination are usually behind the scenes, right? So one of the things that I think I hear and I resonate deeply with is something that you mentioned, Emily, right? Um, one of the most important trait as a chief of staff is actually having a low ego, right? The role is not about us. It's not about you. It's about empowering others to succeed and being comfortable with actually working behind the scenes. In fact, I would say I'm still I'm still constantly learning about that. In many ways, I'm still a work in progress. There are times that, you know, it's challenging to stay behind the scene, right? Because, um, when you're out there, when you're when you're owning a business or parts of a business, you're basically owning a team. You own network of clients that you are actually building and you're basically running a business, growing a business, right? Yeah. In this role is basically the flip side of it, right? So the more invisible you are, probably the more visible your impact becomes, right? It's not about talking about this. It's not about taking the spotlight. It's also about creating an environment where others can shine and succeed and in it all. Then we bring the organization to the next level. So that's that's basically one of the key things that, um, I feel very strongly about when I took on this role.

Emily:

Wow. Yes. Okay. There was a lot in there. I'm just going to let people rewind and listen to that. But there's one other thing I want to point out in your article. Um, when you first moved to the chief of staff role, I'm reading this quote and laughing. Someone said, come back to consulting, come out of retirement. So people were like, you kind of retired essentially. I was like, no, no, no. I'm just doing something in an entirely different area. But, um, why, what made people say that? They didn't see you or they didn't see you in a director role anymore.

Mel:

So that was funny, right? In fact, some of, in fact, to today, right? Sometimes I still get those kind of comments, right? Um, and I guess it, it comes back to, um, how this role is so new or so nascent in this region. A lot of times people don't know what I'm doing, or people don't know what chief of staffs do in general, right? Um, and a lot of the times we are doing things that, uh, So, okay. That reminded me, right? One of the, one of the key things that I, um, that I, uh, experienced in the early days of my chief of staff role is that I was suddenly empowered or entrusted to some confidential and sensitive data of the organization, which I never had before. Right? So that was basically it. Something that is new. In fact, I still remember my, my feeling at that point in time. It's like, wow, this is like so dangerous. Like I could even, I know a lot more about how this organization, how this company is run, then probably a lot of, then probably a lot of people within the organization that is, uh, longer or more senior in that company. Right. So because of that nature of our role and because of, um, the. the kind of items that we are dealing with. Most of the time we don't tell people what we do, right? Most of the time we're supporting behind the scene to the principle that actually needs to work with insurmountable, uh, data to be able to understand what's happening and how do we identify, um, uh, areas to improve on, right? So that's the reason why even today, right? People probably. Still don't have a full or clear idea of what does a chief of staff do, right? Compared to in the past when I was a director, right? It's actually very visible, right? I was there, I was, you know, going to this particular client and I was growing this client to from x amount to y amount and so on and so forth, right? And I have a team and then we, we, we, we basically, you know, tell people that these are the team that we work with, right? So it was very, very visible. So to a lot of people, When they don't see what you're doing, they might think that you're not doing much, right? So that's probably what prompted. Some of these discussions. Um, and, and, and because we support the principal or the leadership team so much, right? Uh, some misconception that comes around is also, you know, um, they will come to a chief of staff like an executive administrator, right? Or executive assistant, whereby they just want to know where the principal is, right? Like, Oh, can you tell me what's the best time to schedule a meeting with him or her, right? Uh, which, which is still not uncommon. Right until today. Uh, in in my current role. Uh, but I tend to brush that away, right? So in the first few months when I was not clear myself, I was also having doubts, right? Is this what I was supposed to do? Right? But now that I have a lot more understanding and that and appreciation of the role, I will still respond, right? But you know, uh, what I think matters is Back to the tagline that Deloitte hacks, right? What, how, how do we make an impact that matters, right? I think this impact that matters is very real because it's an impact to the same organization, the same company that I'm working in, that I can actually see the outcome. So I think that that is what, you know, keeps me going, um, in this role.

Emily:

Oh my gosh. So it seems like as you grew in knowledge of what the role was yourself and appreciation for what the role in the back office teams did yourself, that allowed you to, fulfill the chief of staff role even more and, and present it to people in different departments, in that way. Okay, very cool. Well, we'll have a link to this article. It's, uh, it's a short read, but it's a good read. And I would encourage people to, to take a look at it. has some valuable stuff in there. As we wrap up, Melissa, what words of wisdom or advice would you give to a chief of staff and also a principal looking to bring on a chief of staff or maybe who has one and just wants to optimize that role?

Mel:

Yeah, I think that's a good one, Emily. Um, so I guess I'm not probably, you know, a chief of staff that has been in the role for a long time. Uh, one key takeaway, uh, probably repeat this again, right, is basically back to the low ego, uh, advice that you yourself have given Emily, right? I think it is very important sometimes that, uh, we, uh, We oversee the importance of the unsung heroes. We oversee the importance of the people who are actually working tirelessly behind the back to enable something to run, and we take for granted that they will just be there, right? So I guess that, uh, Is a good advice that you have given and I'm taking on board that I think is actually a good Um a good challenge, right? Especially to a lot of the chief of staffs get into the role because they are potentially high potential individuals They are high achievers. They want to do things. They want to be seen right? but Taking a step back sometimes enables us to actually have a broader perspective, have a broader understanding. And one thing that actually resonated with me when I spoke to another chief of staff is that learn through exposure. So I used to, this is so technical, as an engineer myself, right, I used to say that I want to basically just learn hard skills, right, technical skills, and I'm like, you know, I, I am so good at this particular subject matter. Then when I come to this role, I'm like, what am I learning, right? But, you know, the, the, the soft skills are actually very, very important, right? Stakeholders, management, communications. An MBA will probably give you the theory, but this is probably a practical walk of the MBA itself, right? I think that's, that's one thing that I would take away, uh, for the role of the Chief of Staff. For the role of the Principal, I think it is very, very important to walk the talk when it comes to enabling or supporting your Chief of Staff, um, because if this role can be set up correctly. And if your chief of staff are empowered with the authority, with the trust that they can operate effectively. And what that means is you need to back them up visibly, right? Especially in moments when you know, there are tough calls when there are challenges that are being implemented. Most of the time in either strategic projects or operational issues, we are caught in when there's a problem, right? So that clear communication about why is this chief of staff involved when they are not.

Emily:

Yes. I agree with that a hundred percent. So Melissa, thank you so much for jumping on and sharing this insight and knowledge. I know it will be valuable to people, but, um, thank you for doing what you're doing in your part of the world and in your company and, reaching out to people proactively, I love your style and I love your enthusiasm. and I appreciate you being on the show.