What a Chief of Staff at Mesh Wishes They Had Known Before Working in Tech
Caldwell, a Chief of Staff at Mesh, learned the crucial role of "buffering" between executive and operational teams, tempering feedback to protect operational teams' capacity for focused work. This experience highlights the importance of effective communication and strategic management in a leadership support role, a skill valuable beyond the Chief of Staff position itself.
Communication, Executive/Leadership, Problem-Solving, Teamwork, Overcoming Challenges
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Caldwell Clarke
Chief of Staff
Mesh
University of Maryland
UCLA Anderson School of Management - MBA
Engineering - Mechanical
Gaming, Technology
Product / Service / Software Development and Management
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. The role of Chief of Staff involves significant translation and buffering between executive and operational teams.
2. It's crucial to temper feedback and enthusiasm to protect operational teams, allowing them to focus on one task at a time.
3. Protecting operational teams is valuable for anyone indirectly managing them, not just Chiefs of Staff.
Transcript
What have you learned about this role that you wish someone would have told you before you entered the industry?
What have you learned about this role that you wish someone would have told you before you entered the industry?
I think this isn't necessarily super role-specific, but it really came up a lot in my work as a chief of staff. You're the layer between the executive team and the operational teams.
A lot of effort is going to be around figuring out how to translate appropriately between them and also buffer appropriately. You need to protect your teams.
One of the issues we ran into often was a lot of feedback coming to the executive team, like "Oh, we really need to do this. We really need to do that." I didn't realize it at first, but I had to put a lot of effort into tempering that feedback and enthusiasm with the engineering team. For them to work efficiently, they had to do one thing at a time.
Protecting the operational team is something that's really valuable, not just for a chief of staff but for anyone who's not directly managing folks, or if you are directly or indirectly managing folks. It's really important.
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