3 steps to building amazing Office of the CEO playbooks
Playbooks are your secret weapon to move your Office of the CEO at 10x speed. They’ll save you time, reduce mistakes and help you onboard new team members faster. Playbooks can define complex processes, interaction models and handoffs between your CEO, Chief of Staff, Executive Assistant and the rest of the business. Characteristics of a good playbook include clarity, completeness, and straightforward language.
How do you build great playbooks? Let’s walk through the following 3 step Observe > Document > Develop (ODD) process with an example: a Public Speech playbook.
Step 1: Observe
Examine what’s working well and identify what’s not. Take a look at a few public speeches that went well for your CEO. Understand the necessary steps to prepare for, deliver and follow up on public speeches. Review speeches that were total flops and figure out the reasons why.
Step 2: Document
Now it’s time to create your playbook. Write down each step and handoff to the relevant stakeholder. For example, the Executive Assistant might schedule the speech. The Chief of Staff ghostwrites the speech. The CEO makes final edits. The Chief of Staff runs a rehearsal with the CEO. The CEO delivers the speech. The Chief of Staff follows up with any key audience members. The Director of Marketing posts about the speech on social media.
Step 3: Develop
Don’t forget to enhance your playbook with principles, tips, images and annotations to bring your playbook to life. You can add photos of your CEO on stage, past speech transcripts, and successful social media posts. Once you have your Public Speech Playbook in hand, it’s time to share it with the rest of your Office of the CEO team and relevant business stakeholders to see what they think. Get their feedback and incorporate any changes. PS it’s a good idea to refresh your playbooks and retrain the team every 6 months or so, as best practices change.
So there you have it: 3 steps to build amazing playbooks: Observe > Document > Develop. Remember, the best Offices of the CEO maintain dynamic playbooks to get work at blazing speeds.
Download our Office of the CEO playbook here to learn more about building powerful playbooks that streamline your Office of the CEO and boost efficiency.
