Certified Executive Personal Assistant

Why Attend

Executive assistants nowadays hold a very important position of influence and need

to build a powerful partnership with the senior management team. This course

will enable you to have the right competencies in order to work in partnership with

 your manager. After all, your success will have a direct effect on your manager's

 success. This course seeks to supplement your current set of capabilities by adding

 other highly needed competencies that will lead to excellence in your position.

During this course, you will discover ways to enhance your confidence and

forward thinking ability, allowing you to become a true business partner with the

 executive team. You will learn and practice powerful emotional intelligence

strategies which you can immediately apply at the workplace. Moreover, you

 will participate in detailed discussions on the importance of building systems and

having a systematic thinking approach, leading you to create several systems

at the workplace. The next segment of this course discusses how to professionally

deal with visitors, internal customers and external customers and how to make

 your department and company more customer friendly. Finally, you will learn

 how to develop action plans that will enhance your professional image and the

image of your department and company.

 
Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

» Provide full support to stakeholders in order to enhance the success of the business

»Apply emotional intelligence to foster excellent business relationships both laterally

   and  vertically

» Harness modern communication concepts and strategies to facilitate work flow

» Use the main functions of management to build and maintain different organizing

   systems that will lead to increased productivity

» Demonstrate professional skills in using creativity, serving internal customers, and

   managing stress

Course Outline

  Progressive role of the executive or personal assistant

» Understanding the strategic role of today’s executive assistant

» Working 'with' versus working 'for' your leader

» The challenges impacting the 21st century administrators

» The competencies of the modern personal assistant

» Self-empowerment: creating your own mission statement

» Developing forward thinking: being a proactive thinker

» Using technology to get things done

Exploring Linkages Between Strategy, Projects and Operations

» Demystifying Strategy: the InCOME PRESCRIPTS 5i Framework

» Identifying structures, governance, systems and people capabilities

» Project alignment with strategy and organizational goals

Fundamentals of Project Management

» Defining a project

» Work breakdown structure

» Scheduling considerations

» Planning tools, project risks

» Ways to compress a project’s schedule and budget

» Controlling the project, including status meetings and issues management

» Controlling changes and closing out a project

» Financial statements, reports & budgets

» Analysing the basic elements of an income and expenditure statement

» Monitoring and controlling actual expenses and revenue against projected expenses and revenue

» Getting projects into operations

People Management & Leadership

» Identify your leadership profile and explore how you can use this knowledge to create   your own future

» Assess your leadership competencies and learn how you can develop your strengths

» Identify those additional skills and tools that can make you a better leader

» Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

» Know your inter-personal style and how your behavior impacts others

» Sympathy vs Empathy

Mastering management practices 

» Planning
Setting SMART objectives
Writing your personal goal setting plan

» Organizing
Delegating effectively  
Setting task priorities

» Directing/leading
Understanding the team dynamics
The coaching clinic

» Controlling
Setting useful metrics
Building and maintaining systems  

Effective Communication & Conflict Management

» The EPA as representative of the executive

» Develop your ability to influence and communicate with others

» Understanding communication:
  ( Diversity, assumptions and stereotypes - Listening skills – Verbal and non-verbal  communication )

Presentation & Report Writing Skills

» Making the most of meetings

» Oral versus written presentations

» Planning presentations

» Overcoming nervousness

» Presentation preparation

» The speaking voice

» Report writing

Using technology in the 21st century

» Telephone courtesies

» Cell phone etiquette

» Email protocols

» Use of social media

Problem Solving, Multitasking & Dealing with Complexity

» Differentiate and define various types of problems

» Determine the appropriate problem solving technique

» Root Cause Analysis

» Evaluate solutions and apply creative thinking techniques to problem solving

» Determine the decision objective

» Develop selection criteria & evaluate alternatives

The Executive/PA guidelines for success 

» Forging a customer service culture in your office 

• The importance of internal customer service
• Making your department customer friendly
• Dealing with visitors 

» Creativity tools for decision making

• Definition of creativity
• Creativity tools for generating improvements 
• The personal creativity profile

» Stress management

• Identifying causes of stress
• The personal stress worksheet
• Time management preventive measures