This edition of Force Multipliers is sponsored by Atlas Assistants!

Hey! Did you know most executives spend only a fraction of their time in their Zone of Genius? The rest is spent overwhelmed by competing demands that significantly distract from high-level obligations.

Atlas Assistants changes that.

They don’t just match you with an Executive Assistant. You get a world-class partner, supported by proven systems and ongoing training designed to enhance your workflow.

The results speak for themselves: You shift from reactive to strategic.

From doing what’s urgent to focusing on what’s essential.

From managing everyone else’s agenda to leading from yours.

🚀 Ready to reclaim your time for what matters to you?

Dear Regina,

Dear Operator,

Step 1: The "Top Goal" Reality Check 💡

Before you can prioritize anything, you need to force clarity from your leadership team.

I learned this the hard way: most executives don't actually know what their real priorities are. They think they do, but when push comes to shove, they're just as reactive as everyone else.

Here's what I do with every CEO I coach: I force them to pick just three things max to focus on per quarter. Not five. Not seven. Three.

This comes from the "Top Goal" concept: you choose no more than three priorities per quarter, and you spend two hours every day working on those things until they're done. I check progress every two weeks during our coaching calls.

But you don't need me to coach you on doing this. You need accountability - and you can get accountability pretty much anywhere.

Step 2: T-Shirt Size Everything 👕 

Now that you know what the company actually cares about, you need to assess your own work using what I call operator t-shirt sizing.

For every project or request that comes your way, ask two questions:

• How big is the impact? (XS, S, M, L, XL)

• How big is the lift? (XS, S, M, L, XL)

Always choose big impact, low lift first. Then big impact, higher lift.

But here's where most operators mess up: they don't know how to assess "impact" when they don't own a single domain.

To know impact, you have to know what the company cares about and what will make a measurable difference.

Every company will have something different that matters: Is it revenue? Number of users? Customer pipeline? Progress on building a physical thing? Number of stores opened?

Once you're clear on what the company cares about, ask yourself how your operational work is in service of that goal.

Real example: At On Deck, whether I liked it or not, the company's goals were number of fellowships launched. They wanted revenue numbers to raise a big round. So I made it my priority to help launch all the fellowships leadership wanted, and at a very high bar of execution. Every fellowship launched was profitable from day 1, and it got us the numbers we needed to raise $20M.

I didn't work on the stuff that felt important to me. I worked on the stuff that was important to the company's survival and growth.

Step 3: Master the Art of Strategic "No" 🛑 

Here's where operators get into trouble: they think saying "no" to leadership will hurt their career.

Wrong. Saying "yes" to everything will hurt your career. You'll become known as the person who's always overwhelmed and never quite delivers excellence.

But saying no doesn't always have to sound like a no. Here are the scripts I use.

☝️ Iceboxing it: "Not now. Let me put this on our roadmap for next quarter."

☝️ This, then that: "Once we're done with X, I can tackle this. For Y to happen, we need to finish X first."

☝️ Seeking clarity: "Help me understand where this fits with our top 3 priorities. What am I missing that makes this more important than [current priority]?"

☝️ Delegating: "Actually, [name] would be better suited for this. They have more context on this area than I do."

Notice none of these sound like rejections. They sound like someone who's thinking strategically about resource allocation.

Step 4: The Weekly Reality Check ✅ 

Most operators are terrible at auditing their own time. They think they're working on strategic stuff, but they're actually just responding to whoever pings them most recently.

You need a weekly review process.

I recommend using project-based syncs on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Use my Weekly Memo Template to update on what's on track, what's in danger, and what's fallen behind. Include a "Things I Need" section to get people to give you what you need to move forward.

But more importantly: use your managerial 1-1s to solicit feedback on whether you're working on the right things.

Most operators expect their managers to run their 1-1s. Wrong move. You should manage up by having an agenda. That agenda should include: "Review my projects and tell me whether I'm working on the highest leverage stuff."

Step 5: The Political Capital Budget 🫰 

Here's what they don't teach you in business school: time, energy, and political capital are all finite resources.

Every time you push back on a request, you're spending political capital. Every time you say "this doesn't make sense," you're making a withdrawal from your relationship bank account.

You need to budget this just like you budget your time.

🔼 High political capital moves: Challenging the CEO's pet project, saying no to a board-level request, pushing back on something the executive team already agreed on.

🔽 Low political capital moves: Suggesting a better process, declining a non-urgent request from a peer, asking for clarity on priorities.

And if you’re reading this - you're already ahead.

Because you know where to find the stuff that’s actually good. Like my templates and resources, and this newsletter.

Want more operational content?

Check out Coaching Founder for over a dozen free, downloadable Notion templates to use at your company, and tons of write-ups on how to level up your execs, your teams, and yourself.

About Regina Gerbeaux

Shortly after her role as Chief of Staff, then COO, she opened her own coaching practice, Coaching Founder, and has worked with outrageously talented operators on teams like Delphi AI, dYdX, Astronomer, Fanatics Live, and many more companies backed by funds like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz.

Her open-sourced write-ups on Operational Excellence and how to run a scaling company can be found here and her templates can be found here.

She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, daughter, and dog, and can be found frequenting 6:00AM Orangetheory classes or hiking trails nearby.