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Cross-functional, innovative, and discreet
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Alexander Middleton
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5 min read
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April 12
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Alexander Middleton argues that Special Projects are an ideal fit for the chief of staff skillset
Much like the professional title Chief of Staff, ‘Special Projects’ is a term with government and military origins currently rising in prominence within the modern-day corporate lexicon. Increasingly, it pops up in job titles, organisational charts and under the core responsibilities section of job listings. Discrete Special Projects divisions continue to emerge in early-stage tech startups as well as established global enterprises, often with their own remit, budget and staff. Yet despite the growing ubiquity of the term in the corporate setting, corresponding definitions are hard to come by.
Projects, generally, are known to be ‘unique, transient endeavour[s], undertaken to achieve planned objectives, which could be defined in terms of outputs, outcomes or benefits’.1 What sets Special Projects apart is that, in addition to this, they are either cross-functional, innovative or commercially sensitive in nature, or quite likely a combination of all three given the interrelationship between these traits. Furthermore, the chief of staff can be well placed to oversee these complex workstreams given the synergy between their respective characteristics.

Cross-Functional

Addressing an auditorium of students during Carnegie Mellon’s Energy Week in 2017, Andrew Stevenson, then Head of Special Projects at Tesla, described his division as ‘the department that you get put into if there’s really no clear home for you in any of the other 30 departments at the company’.2 Astro Teller, who oversees Alphabet’s X – the ‘Moonshot Factory’ experimenting with artificial intelligence, sensors and robotics to solve lofty challenges – has also alluded to this sense of ‘otherness’. During a TED Talk he said, ‘At X … you’ll find an aerospace engineer working alongside a fashion designer, and former military ops commanders brainstorming with laser experts’.3
Special Projects are unique endeavours, often existing at intersections, yielding patchwork creations that are distinct from traditional corporate outputs.
Special Projects are unique endeavours, often existing at intersections, yielding patchwork creations that are distinct from traditional corporate outputs. Though often comprised of specialists, such as those listed by Teller above, they are more likely to require a generalist to lead them; someone with ‘range’ as David Epstein put it in his 2019 book, Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World. He argues that those who have sampled widely, gained a breadth of experience, experimented relentlessly, and pursued varied interests, emerge as leaders in ‘wicked environments’: domains in which the rules of engagement are unclear, and feedback is slow, inaccurate, or both.4 Many (though not all) Special Projects occupy such spaces.
As perhaps the quintessential generalists, in an increasingly specialised world, chiefs of staff are well positioned to lead virtual teams of disparate talents. Through their expansive toolkit and adaptive mindset, they can avoid the pitfalls of ‘cognitive entrenchment’, a condition in which the novelty of the challenge may force a specialist to revert to what they know best, rather than adapting their team’s approach to solve the novel issue at hand.5
US President Carter’s chief of staff, Jack Watson, described his role as akin to ‘a point guard in a basketball team, …. [a] playmaker, getting the ball to the best shooter’.6 In few places is this style of servant leadership more relevant and applicable than the Special Projects arena. Indeed, the cross-functionality inherent in these workstreams calls for a team player capable of mobilising others, coordinating the action, and leveraging available skills to deliver the win.

Innovative

When he was VP of Innovation & Special Projects at Nike, Mark Smith saw innovating as one of three things: you’re either the first, the best or the only.7 ‘We're excited’, he told an interviewer, ‘when we're first, best and only’.8
As a hotbed of innovation, few places globally have a higher concentration of Special Projects staff than Silicon Valley. Indeed, in the technology sector, the title ‘Director of Special Projects’ is almost as commonplace as CFO, or any other CXO variant. Despite showing signs of emerging as a discrete professional discipline in and of itself, not all Special Projects warrant their own divisions and resources. The scale, complexity and ambition of such undertakings vary widely; from audacious pursuits to more modest initiatives such as introducing new governance processes, creating frameworks for business models, or leading a metrics overhaul.9 Providing the objective of the project is not an all-consuming mission or moonshot, which would detract from other responsibilities, the chief of staff can be well placed to oversee their delivery. Indeed, the synergy between the innovative characteristics of Special Projects and the chief of staff role is strong: both require the professional to frequently work outside or across existing corporate structures, navigate complex systems and cut through red tape to solve novel problems.
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Sensitive

Novel and disruptive products yield market share and dominance, and as such, are often commercially sensitive and fiercely guarded. ‘RESTRICTED AREA. We hear you knocking, we can’t let you in’ read a sign at the main entrance to Nike’s semi-secret ‘innovation kitchen’10; a place where HyperAdapt 1.0, the world’s first self-lacing shoe, qualifies as a Special Project. Though the message is somewhat tongue in cheek, the company, like all competitive enterprises, takes its innovations and intellectual property (IP) seriously.
Ways to safeguard innovation can take many forms, from filing for patents, trademarks, and copyrights to Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDAs). So common are NDAs in the tech sector that they have become known as the ‘Silicon Valley handshake’. Indeed, the liberal use of NDAs in the Valley is controversial and not without issue. There has been extensive media coverage on high-profile tech firms' overreach and misapplication of NDAs to suppress not only commercially sensitive information but also legitimate employee concerns and grievances.11
This link though between Special Projects and sensitivity is nothing new. In 1948, President Truman approved NSC 10/2 which created the Office of Special Projects. Yet before the new organisation became operational, a decision was made to rename it the Office of Policy Coordination to deflect attention away from its true purpose. Having Special Projects in the name, it was thought, would attract too much attention to the covert nature of the operation and generate unwanted public scrutiny.12
…throughout history, principals, whether they be military commanders or CEOs, have invested a great deal of confidence in their ‘right hand’ advisors, entrusting them with their most sensitive workstreams.
There is then a long, innate, and intuitive association between Special Projects and secrecy. Given this link, the chief of staff once again emerges as a candidate for overseeing their delivery. Indeed, throughout history, principals, whether they be military commanders or CEOs, have invested a great deal of confidence in their ‘right hand’ advisors, entrusting them with their most sensitive workstreams. As Tyler Parris, notes, there are ‘core characteristics that tend to define a chief of staff’ and these include ‘exceptional discretion with confidential information’.13

Conclusion

Born out of the need to accelerate innovation, the future of Special Projects looks set to thrive given the relentless demand for novel creations in the modern, competitive business environment. As a chief of staff, you will already be accustomed to working outside, or across, organisational boundaries, connecting disparate fields and coordinating novel endeavours with discretion. So it is highly probable that your organisation, and your principal, will soon look to you to lead these complex, high-impact workstreams.
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Author Bio
Alexander Middleton
Special Projects Manager, Freight division at Network Rail
Alexander Middleton is Special Projects Manager within the Freight division at Network Rail where he leads initiatives aimed at accelerating modal shift from road to rail. He lives and works in London and is an Associate Member of The Chief of Staff Association.
Reference:
  1. Association for Project Management, ‘What is Project Management?’ Available at: https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/what-is-project-management/ [Accessed 14 November 2022].
  2. Stevenson, A. ‘Opportunities for Students in Building a Sustainable Energy Future.’ Andrew Stevenson, Keynote speech, Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, Carnegie Mellon University, Energy Week, 28 March 2017. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRoDR3zEOGI [Accessed 14 November 2022].
  3. Teller, A. ‘The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure’. TED talk at TED2016, 15 February 2016. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/astro_teller_the_unexpected_benefit_of_celebrating_failure/transcript?language=en [Accessed 14 November 2022].
  4. Epstein, D. Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (London, Pan Books, 2019).
  5. Dane, E. ‘Reconsidering the Trade-Off Between Expertise and Flexibility’, Academy of Management Review, 35:4 (2010), pp. 579-603, cited in Epstein, D. Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (London, Pan Books, 2019), p. 32.
  6. The Presidents’ Gatekeepers, Discovery Channel, 2012.
  7. Cringean, R. ‘Discussing the art of sneaker innovation with Nike’s Mark Smith’. 19 March 2018 [The Spin-Off]. Available at: https://www.the-spin-off.com/news/portrait/Sneakers-Discussing-the-art-of-sneaker-innvoation-with-Nikes-Mark-Smith-14011 [Accessed 14 November 2022].
  8. Cringean, R. ‘Discussing the art of sneaker innovation with Nike’s Mark Smith’. 19 March 2018 [The Spin-Off]. Available at: https://www.the-spin-off.com/news/portrait/Sneakers-Discussing-the-art-of-sneaker-innvoation-with-Nikes-Mark-Smith-14011 [Accessed 14 November 2022].
  9. Examples taken from: Parris, T, Chief of Staff: The Strategic Partner Who Will Revolutionize Your Organization (Bellevue, Tyler Parris Coaching, 2015), pp.123-124 and DeWahl, J. ‘The Chief of Staff role in Silicon Valley’. 29 April 2019 [Medium]. Available at: https://medium.com/chiefofstaffnetwork/the-chief-of-staff-role-in-silicon-valley-182eb93e636e [Accessed 14 November 2022].
  10. Cendrowski, S. ‘Nike’s new marketing mojo’. 13 February 2012 [Fortune]. Available at https://fortune.com/2012/02/13/nikes-new-marketing-mojo/ [Accessed 14 November 2022].
  11. See for example: Ovide, S. ‘An Obsession With Secrets’. The New York Times (Online). 27 July 2021. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/technology/nondisclosure-agreements-tech-companies.html [Accessed 14 November 2022] and Roberts, J. ‘Why You Should Be Worried About Tech’s Love Affair With NDAs’. 29 April 2019. Fortune. Available at: https://fortune.com/2019/04/29/silicon-valley-nda/ [Accessed 14 November 2022].
  12. Mitrovich, G. (2000). Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947-1956 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2000), pp.18-20.
  13. Parris, T, Chief of Staff: The Strategic Partner Who Will Revolutionize Your Organization (Bellevue, Tyler Parris Coaching, 2015), p.22.
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