The Sounding Board

As many of my colleagues, readers, and clients know, I have been heavily involved with a professional organization devoted to Virtual Assistants for a few years now. I’ve done a great deal of volunteer work for that organization including giving permission to publish my articles, assisting other members with article submissions for the organization’s own publication, providing text and audio testimonials, assisting with planning virtual events, making connections with speakers for seminars, etc. I did all of those things because I believed in the values and objectives the organization’s founder proposed. I wanted to help promote what I thought was a great and noble cause - elevating our profession and giving like-minded professionals a place to freely share ideas, inspiration, successes, failures, and mutual support.

We all know that any healthy organization must change and evolve over time in order to stay current and responsive to the community it serves. That is paramount to a healthy, sustainable business. However, when the organization’s core values, beliefs, and objectives evolve to such a degree that the organization is no longer recognizable from its original roots? Unfortunately, then it’s often time for key members to disengage and move on. This is the path I have found myself on over the last year - increasingly distancing myself from an organization whose core beliefs and objectives are no longer in line with my own. I simply cannot support, nor sit idly by, while a once vibrant and open community that celebrated critical thinking and intelligent debate becomes a community of censorship driven by a single dictator who makes no room for any opinion not in line with hers.

You would think that growth would be a positive thing and that growth which causes a separation in ideals is simply healthy maturation of an organization. Separation should be dignified and professional. You simply agree that you no longer see eye to eye and the best course of action would be to part ways and wish each other the best. Unfortunately, this is not the case with this particular parting. Instead, I find myself feeling betrayed and used. In the beginning, there were specific boundaries for where the organization would and would not go in terms of growth. There were things each of us understood to be unacceptable in terms of the kind of community we all wanted to help create and foster. I have operated under that understanding since the very beginning.  I have given freely of my time and my expertise in support of that goal…only to find that I was misled. The goals we all work so diligently towards were never the “real” intended goals. What was deemed “unacceptable” in the beginning is now the status quo and the goals for the whole organization. The “community” we helped to create has become the vehicle for promoting only one.

I cannot help but feel betrayed and saddened that one person could take such advantage of all those who gave so freely of their time and effort to build a noble, elevated community - only to have that community stripped from us so that one and only one person can reap the benefit of a combined effort. That, in my opinion, is the epitome of unethical behavior. It has also been a hard, painful lesson learned in terms of volunteering the time and energy, much less the image and integrity of my business.

Have you learned a similar lesson in your business? By all means, feel free to share your experience by posting your comments below.

Peace of mind. What a reassuring feeling to know that no matter what - you’re covered, right? If your home were to be destroyed by fire, you’ve got insurance for that. If you were involved in a car accident tomorrow, you’ve got insurance coverage for that. If (Heaven forbid) something were to happen to you, you have life insurance to help your family. Yes, that kind of peace of mind really does help you sleep at night, doesn’t it?

But what about other, less thought about aspects of your work and play? Do you have peace of mind for the smaller headaches of life? How about those of us who rely heavily on computers for our livelihoods? As a Virtual Assistant, my entire business depends on my computer and my network reliability. This is a beautiful thing in that it allows me the freedom of location independence. I can work from anywhere, at any time, provided of course that my computer and my network system are dependable. What would I do if my system suddenly crashed, or my network had critical issues I didn’t know how to manage? What would happen to my business without my computer? I’m no technician, by any means. (Although I do know more than the average joe.)

Luckily, I’ve found options to help me keep my network and my computer running in tip-top shape. As a firm believer in delegating tasks to the best skilled people so that I don’t have to worry about it, I’ve opted to contract my computer & network maintenance to a third party. It’s one less thing I have to worry about, so I have peace of mind when it comes to my business hardware. If something goes wrong, I don’t have to sweat it. I have it covered via a third party contractor whose sole purpose for being is to make sure my system isn’t a headache for me or for my clients.

There are a plethora of companies out there who will take over routine system maintenance remotely, offer options to walk you through troubleshooting when needed, or even come to your home or business to fix computer glitches and issues on-site. Some companies, like Fast-teks even offer same-day service at your location, depending on the service plan you choose. While not all companies offer service plans for both residential and business customers, national firms such as Fast-teks generally do. Here’s a little blurb from Fast-teks’ literature:

“Business and Residential Services: Fast-teks business services are designed with small and mid size businesses in mind. Our certified technicians provide fast, affordable business computer service and technical computer help - offering same day, weekend and evening appointments.

Learn more about our business services: http://www.fastteks.com/business.php ”  

If you’re a solo professional who depends on your computer and network the way I do, don’t you deserve a little peace of mind? Isn’t your business worth a little expense to prevent huge headaches later? Believe me, I speak from experience when I say it only takes one system crash for you to really appreciate the benefit of having help close at hand. (Ask me about the system crash I endured just a few short days before a huge virtual event I was helping to put together! Weeks worth of emails and document drafts for the event…gone in seconds, with only a couple of days to rebuild it all. It wasn’t a pretty sight!) Seriously, do yourself a favor…find a good, reliable, experienced company to manage routine maintenance for you. It’s worth every penny!

(And by the way…for those of you interested…Fast-teks also discusses their franchise opportunity here.)

In researching work styles, my assistant and I both found some interesting quizzes available to help you determine your work style. I found this quiz at iVillage. While this quiz is intended for those of us working for another company, it does offer some insight into solutions for some of the more problematic aspects of your work style, regardless of if you answer to yourself or someone else. I took the quiz and (not surprisingly) I was dubbed a “perfectionist.” Not surprising, considering my line of work & my commitment to my clients. Here are some of the suggestions offered to help “fix” my perfectionist tendencies.

“The Perfectionist fix
You need to set more realistic goals without compromising your high standards. The way to accomplish this is via some welcome distractions that can help you put work in perspective.

• Write a list of top taskseach day to remind youself what your true priorities are and refer to it every time you finish one of the tasks. This can help you stay on track instead of going off at the deep end over small tasks.
• Learn to delegate. It can be hard to trust underlings but if they don’t learn from experience, how can they improve? The more confidence you have in their ability, the more likely they are to succeed.
• Keeping a photo of your loved ones on your desk can help remind you to leave work on time.
• Start a whiteboard with each of your projects listed on it, along with the deadlines and budget for how much time and money to allocate.
• Get a comfortable chair that will encourage you to put your feet up occasionally. During these breaks call a loved one, scan a magazine - relax!
• Consider taking some of your meetings outsideof the office or meeting rooms. It’ll help you relax and focus on the real nitty-gritty of the meeting. An agenda for the meeting will also help you to focus rather than getting bogged down by minor points.”

Hmm….I could do some of those things. Delegating is the one thing on that list that I am currently working on. I just recently brought in an assistant to help with my business. My biggest struggle has been learning to let go of certain things & trusting my assistant to do what I hired her to do. (Gee, now I understand exactly what my clients struggle with when turning over their administrative tasks to me!)

What is your work style? What improvements can you make that will help YOU work with, as opposed to against, your work style?

Stay tuned….our next discussion will help you identify what to look for in an assistant who can compliment your work style & help you make some of those improvements.