As an Executive Assistant, the bulk of our work is preventing problems before they happen. Most of the time, it works. Absolutely nothing goes wrong. That is the job. That’s also the catch.
Prevention leaves no trace, none of the typical evidence we use to measure performance. So the better we are at doing the work, the less proof we have that we’ve done anything.
A Vocabulary Gap
Because the work we do to keep chaos at bay is invisible, EAs default to describing it using simple task language. We say, "I manage the calendar" or "I book travel," naming the physical part that people can see. The high-level judgment and proactive measures we use to keep systems from dissolving into pandemonium gets left out of the calculation. When I caught a missing Zoom link on a board meeting invite and reached out for a correction to avoid embarrassment at go-time, "nothing happened." When I discovered my executive accidentally double-booked himself on his own anniversary and I intervened to prevent relational fall-out, "nothing happened."
I wondered how other sectors have solved this invisible high-skill paradox? Were there other contexts where industries looked at "nothing happened" and realized it was evidence of elite skill? I uncovered three examples where systems have been built to measure invisible, behind-the-scenes mastery:
- When the aviation industry realized it was far more valuable to measure a pilot's skill in preventing a crash than analyzing systems failures after one happened, it built a "Near Miss" reporting structure and used this data to establish safety protocols that protect the entire National Airspace System.
- In project management and construction, safety teams track indicators like completed safety audits, hazard-spotting rates, and preventative maintenance performed on a schedule. They don't wait for an accident to happen. They measure how well a team does at preventing one.
- In the tech sector, IT tracks Mean Time Between Failures and Mean Time To Repair. They take credit for how long a system stays up, and for how fast a team recovers it when it fails.
If these three fields figured out how to measure "nothing happened," EAs can, too. Here's where I'd start:
- The "EA Near Miss"
The EA Translation: Any calendar conflict, high-level miscommunication, or financial risk caught and neutralized before it spread.
Instead of this: "I fixed some scheduling issues today."
Track this: "I logged and resolved 6 Near Misses this month before they impacted the executive team or client relationships." - Preventative Audits
The EA Translation: The proactive checks you run before a problem develops. It is the conflict scans, briefing prep, contract or invoice reviews, performed on a schedule rather than in reaction to a crisis.
Instead of this: "I double-checked the schedule."
Track this: "I completed 12 proactive risk scans this month across calendar, travel, and vendor contracts, catching 3 before they became issues." - Recovery Time
The EA Translation: When a crisis happens despite your best preventative efforts, you measure the speed and precision of your response.
Instead of this: "I rebooked a flight after it got canceled."
Track this: "I deployed a contingency plan and our Recovery Time was 19 minutes from airline cancellation to confirmed rebooking."
Use Tracking Language
I don't think any seasoned EA is in the market for yet another over-engineered measuring tool (a lot of us will look you dead in the eye and tell you our best tracking tool is a Sticky Note). But what these observations do give us is language to describe what we prevent, and guidance for measuring it.
Tracking our Near Misses and Preventative Audits strips away the romance of "the helpful assistant" and replaces it with measurement language: you are running a systems-reliability operation using a distinct, high-level skillset.
What did you prevent this week that nobody knew about?