When you cause trouble for your boss, being able to apologize immediately makes you seem sincere.
However, surprisingly many people only apologize without actually reducing any of the other person's workload. The boss who receives the apology often feels obliged to be considerate and ends up finishing the work themselves.
In my previous company, I served as the secretary for executive meetings. Although called a "secretary," this role involved everything from preparing agendas, moderating the meeting, managing time, to writing minutes. Because I worked right next to the executives, I got a close-up view of the difference between those whose evaluations skyrocketed and those who didn't.
The common trait I observed can be summed up in one phrase: high performers are people who "steal their boss's work."
As long as you are adding to your boss's workload, no matter how hard you try, you won't get evaluated well. It is a game where you reduce their tasks until they think, "If I leave everything to this person, my life will be incredibly easy."
However, trying to steal even your boss's decision-making authority right away usually fails. There is an order to stealing work.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The 5 Steps to Stealing Work (Bottom-Up)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The scope of what you can be entrusted with expands one step at a time, starting from the bottom. Here is a comparison of common mistakes versus what high performers do at each level.
① Logistics
Common mistake … Starting schedule adjustments only after being asked.
High performer … Secures dates and agenda items before being asked.
This is the stage where you take over the small, manual tasks your boss handles themselves.
② Information Gathering
Common mistake … Asking your boss every time you don't know something.
High performer … Providing a list of "who to ask" upfront.
This stage eliminates the time your boss spends searching for information.
③ Drafts
Common mistake … Consulting with a blank slate by asking "What should we do?"
High performer … Bringing a rough draft first, even if it might be wrong.
From here on, you start stealing your boss's "thinking time."
④ Sorting
Common mistake … Escalating everything, including things that don't need to be escalated.
High performer … Separating issues to escalate from those to handle personally, reducing the volume itself.
Since the amount of work your boss needs to do decreases, their day visibly becomes lighter.
⑤ Creating a Decidable State
Common mistake … Submitting materials with vague backgrounds like "It seems that..."
High performer … Solidifying background and issues with facts, presenting a state where the boss only needs to decide.
When I was a secretary, this was the thing I paid the most attention to. By avoiding phrases like "it seems" or "I think" in the agenda's background and issues, and sticking strictly to numbers and facts, meetings became purely about making decisions.
Levels ① and ② make you a "helpful person," but reaching level ③ and above makes you a "trusted person." This is where your evaluation trajectory changes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You Can Only Steal Up to the Work, Not the Decision
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
There is one important caveat.
You can only steal the execution and preparation; leave the decision-making role to your boss. Once you reach level ⑤, you might feel tempted to make the decision yourself, but doing so increases your boss's work due to verification and rework rather than decreasing it.
Prepare everything up to the point of decision, and let your boss say "Let's go with this." Only then have you truly stolen the work.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Which Level Are You At Now?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You can determine your current level by checking these five points from top to bottom:
① Have you stopped letting your boss adjust meeting schedules?
② Are you providing information before your boss starts searching?
③ Do you bring a draft when consulting?
④ Are you selecting which issues to escalate to your boss?
⑤ Are you submitting materials ready for a simple decision?
The first number where you answer "No" indicates the next level you should aim to steal.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Looking back, serving as the executive meeting secretary was essentially a job of continuously stealing work from the executives from the bottom up. Securing schedules, organizing materials, creating a decidable state, and presenting it. That was all I did every time; it wasn't a job requiring special talent.
When one task is removed from your boss's plate, they can use that time for work only they can do. Tomorrow, quietly finish just one task sitting on your boss's desk ahead of them.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I run Pakishino Inc. with the mission: "To create a world where distance to customers shrinks step by step in every company worldwide."
We enter other companies in a capacity similar to board members, handling marketing, development, and new business initiatives on their behalf.
・Proxy CMO … Executing customer acquisition from strategy to implementation (SEO/Landing Pages + Ads/YouTube/SNS)
・Proxy CTO … Executing development from strategy to implementation
・Proxy COO … Doing whatever it takes to increase sales
For more about who writes this, see here:
"I Never Became Someone Who Just Scores Points"
https://x.com/masudak/status/2104511612552130583
Name: Kenichi Masuda
Role: CEO of Pakishino Inc.
After Fan Communications and CyberAgent, joined Mercari in 2016. As an engineer, PMO, and member of the Holding Company Strategic Planning Office, he managed executive meetings, PDCA for mid-to-long-term plans, and organizational improvement based on interviews with 200 employees. Founded his own company in 2022.
I publish content for those struggling with "stagnation" and "inaction" within companies.
Please follow me if you found this helpful.
https://x.com/intent/follow?screen_name=masudak━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
