- Here’s An Opinion On:
- Financial Communications Firms Australia
By Artur Victoria
A common complaint among top executives today is that of the excessive pressure of business affairs on them. They work long hours-some stay in the office until late in the evenings, many take work home at night and over the weekend, and most key managers take short and inadequate vacations. Almost all the time of top executives is spent with other people, and more and more time is spent with people outside the company-such as trade association officials and people active in the local community. The result is that such executives-be they corporate officers, military flag officers, city managers, or university administrators-do not have enough time for adequate contact with colleagues and subordinates or for rest and recreation, and, most important of all, they do not have time for reflection, for the development of long- range plans, and for thinking of new ideas. There seems to be a kind of Gresham’s Law concerning executive time; that is, the routine activities drive out both the things the executive enjoys doing and the things he is really paid for and expected to do.
When the job of an executive begins to exceed his capacity, he might consider hiring an assistant-to. The assistant-to area of responsibility is basically the same as that of his boss. He participates in his chief’s responsibilities, but usually none are delegated to him. Thus no one owes any responsibility to the assistant-to. Helping the chief the assistant-to acts like an extension of his chief personality. The assistant-to status is generally below that of other executives reporting to his boss. An exception, of course, occurs when a key line or staff officer also serves as an assistant-to. To my knowledge, this duality of roles seldom exists because of obvious difficulties that arise regarding loyalty, access to the boss, and other conflicts of interest and responsibility.
It is not always easy to discern whether the position is created to fill a specific need or whether the position is established and then some use found for it. The position may be temporary, it may be newly created, or it may be reinstituted after having been vacant for long periods. The assistant-to post is also used as a sinecure – a flexible office with pay and some status but few if any fixed duties. Whether this is the reason the role was created or whether it is the use to which the role was put is often impossible to ascertain.
There do appear to be both general and specific reasons that lead to the creation of an assistant-to position. From an overall perspective, the easing of executive burdens, administrative convenience, and the flexibility of a role with no task-directed title are all reasons given for establishing an assistant-to position.
The assistant-to is a general staff position. A general staff officer may be described as follows:
The general staff officer has no authority on its own. He is merely an extension of his chief personality, and his authority is only as a representative of the chief. His responsibility is limited to tasks directly assigned to him as an extension of instructions given to him by his superior. He cannot give orders to anyone unless authorized to do so. He is usually instructed not to give information or advice unless it is requested. The principal function of the general staff officer is to relieve the superior of a large burden of office work and daily details. He may undertake special assignments to gather information or to clear up trouble spots. The use of staff personnel represents an attempt to impose on the traditional command structure the benefits of specialization and expertise. General staff personnel, in addition to providing specialization and expertise, may relieve an executive of certain administrative burdens. Yet the usual general staff officer appears to have a task-directed title. An executive may need someone to assist him closely but with a great degree of flexibility and no task content in the position title; such a role can be filled by an assistant-to.
In addition to general staffs, there are personal staffs. Whether the assistant-to is categorized as general or personal staff, the creation of the position appears to result from a need as perceived by an executive.
As executive roles are changed by pressures inside and outside the firm, the role of assistant-to is utilized for formal as well as unofficial purposes. As unofficial jack-of-all-roles, it gives flexibility to executive positions and actions that formal theory and planning usually cannot.
In addition to the fact that many executives are overburdened with work, another basic reason for the creation of the role of assistant-to has to do with the complexity of key executives jobs in the areas of information processing, communications, and decision – making. In attempts that have been made to construct a managerial theory of the firm, it has been acknowledged that the manager as a decision maker is the key element in such a theory, and the model is based upon certain parameters that delimit the decision – making process and the variables that enter into it. The parameters are the external and internal environment of the firm, and the major variable is the communication system through which information flows into and within the organization. One of the assumptions about the communication system is that normally it is unorganized, distorted, and full of noise, and the acquisition and dissemination of relevant information both to the firm and within the firm are problems that must be solved internally.
The initiation of a flow of information to and from a key executive can be an important function of an assistant-to, and this function is enhanced by the assistant-to exceptional mobility. The as A final general reason for creating the position of assistant-to was cited by participants at an American Management Association seminar: He can compensate for a weakness on the part of the boss. The weakness may be organizational (difficulty in coordination because of size, complexity, and so on) or it may be functional (a lack of time or expertise on the part of the executive). Although the time factor could be related to the complexity and burden of the executive internal tasks, it could also be related to the pursuit of external or public relations activities; an assistant-to can relieve his boss of certain of these tasks.
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