I needed to learn to build trust and communicate with Casey within that cultural framework. While Casey and I certainly had sync calls, particularly in the earliest days, Levels’ culture puts a strong emphasis on “async-first,” deep work and minimizing sync time. However, in my remote, mostly asynchronous role at Levels, the onramp to trust wasn’t quite straightforward. I truly can’t overstate how important building trust is (that’s why it’s the first tip on the list!). IN THE FIRST MONTH Tip #1: Communicate async with the goal of building trust with your principal.Īs Oliver Belanger, Chief of Staff at Merit, puts it: “The more trust you have, the more impact you can have.” I’ve bucketed the following advice into key milestones for scaling your impact in the first month, three months and six months. While the Chief of Staff role indeed varies considerably, I identified 10 key tips and guiding principles that can help any Chief of Staff (or someone with a particular interest in this unique startup role) achieve success as they get onboarded and hit the ground running. I’ll also thread that advice together with how I’ve tactically applied it in my own role as the first Chief of Staff at Levels - in which we work almost exclusively in a remote and asynchronous manner. In this article, I unpack the best advice I received from 20 other Chiefs of Staff at early-stage tech companies. As Levels grew and Casey’s responsibilities and public-facing opportunities expanded, she decided to hire a Chief of Staff to help scale her time.Īs I was onboarding to my first Chief of Staff role, I realized that there wasn’t a turn-by-turn roadmap for how to be exceptional at the job - so I crowdsourced guidance from folks in the startup community, leveraging Chief of Staff Networks such as Voray, OnDeck, a16z, and scouring LinkedIn for connections who would be willing to lend their hard-won expertise. Casey operates as the external face of the company in media (having been a guest on over 200 podcasts - for more on the Levels podcast strategy, check out this Review article) while also supporting several functions internally (including Editorial, Growth, Partnership and Product) and recruiting and managing the company’s advisory board. To set the scene, Levels is a Series A company focused on reversing the metabolic disease epidemic by empowering people to understand their health with biosensors and closed-loop feedback. I joined Levels as its first Chief of Staff, reporting to co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Dr. In other words, part of the job of a Chief of Staff is figuring out the job itself. And if your company also has executive assistants on board, there’s an added layer of confusion about how to differentiate the two distinct roles. But how this slightly fuzzy mission is executed can vary widely from company to company based on size, stage and industry - and even two Chiefs of Staff in the same org can have very different roles, depending on the needs of the executive they work closest with. Put simply, a Chief of Staff’s primary directive is to make a leader more effective - prioritizing precious time, optimizing workflows, and even driving strategic projects. My first exposure to a Chief of Staff was Leo McGarry on “The West Wing.” And while watching Leo navigate the political machinations of President Bartlet’s Oval Office was entertaining television, his day-to-day role was of little use to me in prepping for my own role as Chief of Staff at a tech startup. This article is written by Sonja Manning, who is Chief of Staff at Levels.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |