The highest level Chief Staff Officers I know and work with refuse to waste their time. They show up for high level meetings with high level people that they choose to work with. They delegate low level issues to the lower levels as they should. If I were to form a Chief Staff Officers Roundtable in an organization today, I would start at the beginning. I would identify the ONE CEO in my organization that is the highest ranking and most influential business leader in my community.
Next, I would share my Chief Staff Officers Roundtable concept and potential topics we would like them to address with this first CEO to ask for additional input. If we agree, I would ask this first key person to identify the next member to be invited (by her/him.) I would then ask these two people to identify the third member and so on until we had a six-member Chief Staff Officers Roundtable.
This would be a “by invitation only” group where they make the invitations, not us. My first goal is simply to get this level of not-for-profit business leader back engaged. My first job will be to facilitate the best schedule for them and the best agendas to keep their interest.
