Case Analysis: Six Changes of Secretary's Information Service

In practical work, on the one hand, leaders need secretaries to "break through tight encirclement", so that leaders can gain a sense of detachment and solve the problem of "more information"; On the other hand, leaders urgently need secretaries to provide high-quality "correct information" directly related to decision-making issues, and can provide services in the fastest way to solve the problem of "less information". Therefore, the secretary must play his role skillfully in the predicament. To solve this situation, the secretary should not only learn to use the knowledge of information collection, processing, utilization and feedback, but also learn to play an organizational role, and have the ability of macro-thinking, overall planning and information management. From this, we can easily see that in the 2 1 century, with the change of leaders' information demand, the cultivation of secretaries' quality will enter a new stage, the structure of secretaries' knowledge and ability will undergo tremendous changes, and the information service of secretaries will also realize a fundamental change in the choice of guiding ideology, service mode and methods.

1. Changing passive service into active service We study the law of secretarial work, and an important premise is to grasp the position of secretarial profession in the social professional structure. If we emphasize that "the secretary is the assistant of the leader" and "plays an auxiliary role in the leadership activities", it will really play a very important role in understanding the nature of secretarial work and grasping the "degree" of secretarial service. However, blindly emphasizing this point will inevitably limit the secretary's service to the field of passive service. This fixed and closed thinking mode restricts the enthusiasm and initiative of the secretary to develop innovative services. With the increasing popularity of office automation, machines are increasingly replacing the trivial tasks that secretaries need to complete, and the intelligent service of secretaries will become the main connotation of secretaries' profession. The decision-making needs of leaders in the information society are mainly the "intellectual investment" of secretaries. Recognizing this change in the needs of the times is a breakthrough for secretaries to solve the fetters of passive service. The secretary is the product of the continuous development of leadership activities. As a special group of managers, secretaries have outstanding functions of serving leaders. Therefore, the initiative of the secretary's information service is first manifested in actively understanding the whole process of leadership activities, understanding the leadership environment, leadership system, leadership behavior and leadership style, and grasping the laws of leadership work. Secondly, secretaries are actively familiar with management functions such as planning, organization, command, coordination and control, and learn how to provide quality information services in the management of documents, meetings and organs from a wider field and at a deeper level. This change involves the change of guiding ideology and concept.

Second, from general services to professional services, secretaries are social occupations, and there will be a greater market demand in 2 1 century. Secretary's information service is different from other personnel and institutions. As far as internal information service is concerned, first of all, secretarial information service is different from full-time information institutions. Although professional, full-time information institutions provide a wide range of information. The prominent feature of secretarial information service is its particularity (that is, the authority and scope of work of leaders), which is dedicated to directly serving departmental leaders or indirectly serving the decision-making of superior leaders. Secondly, the information service of secretaries is different from that of functional organizations. The information service of functional departments only reflects their professional, system and field problems and provides relevant decision-making plans, while the secretary information service involves a wide range of areas of leadership decision-making; Third, the secretary information service is different from the information service provided by leaders at all levels to superiors and subordinates. The Secretariat Information Office has only the right to make suggestions, but not the right to make decisions. In addition, it has a close relationship with senior leaders, and it is easier to understand the decision-making dynamics of senior executives than the leaders at the next level. Compared with external information services, the difference is more obvious. Information service organizations in society participate in market competition, aiming at profit, which is essentially different from the secretary's free and unconditional service for leaders' decision-making. Thus, the secretary information service occupies an important and unique position in the whole information service system and plays an irreplaceable role. At the same time, it also shows that the secretary information service must highlight its own characteristics. Only by seeing clearly the boundary between secretary information service and other information services can we better explore the law of secretary information service and reflect the true value of secretary service.

Third, from blindness to goal, information is not only wealth, but also a "killer". The purpose of information provided by the secretary is to assist decision-making. Providing information blindly is not only not easy to attract the attention of leaders, but also will increase the burden and divert the attention of leaders, "helping the poor." From the perspective of management efficiency, this is not to provide information services, but to create "information garbage", resulting in a waste of manpower, material resources, financial resources and time. An important reason for the blindness of information service is that the secretary lacks a comprehensive analysis of the information needs of leadership decision-making. Information demand analysis of leadership decision-making is the starting point of secretary information service. The secretary should not only understand the general trend of the change of leadership decision-making demand in this era and this industry from a macro perspective, but also grasp the characteristics of leadership decision-making demand in this unit from a micro perspective. We always talk about providing leaders with "correct information" and whether they can be "correct", which requires secretaries to do: first, try to get accurate information needs from leaders, or get instructions from leaders, or secretaries actively communicate with leaders to understand what problems exist in leaders' "decision-making" "What are the difficulties now?" "What kind of information do you need to know?" Wait a minute. Second, actively try to figure out the matters and difficulties that leaders should make decisions, and grasp the scope, depth and characteristics of leaders' information needs in the process of synthesizing information from superiors and subordinates. Third, pay close attention to the change of environment, understand the development trend of society and departments, and predict which problems will become the main problems of leadership decision-making in the future and the information support needed to solve this problem. Secretaries not only need to master the information needs of leaders' decision-making, but also use various forms to transmit these information to various internal or related external information institutions under the premise of leaders' permission, so that they can effectively supply information according to the needs of leaders. If the secretary can build such a bridge between "need" and "demand" in leadership decision-making, it will fundamentally reduce information interference, increase the efficiency of information service, and play an auxiliary role in leadership work.

Fourth, the transition from oneness to comprehensiveness and synergy. First of all, the secretary should be able to do the work of comprehensive information and have the ability to grasp the position and role of individual information in the whole information. When more information is gradually collected through various systems, they should be able to accurately judge which is important from these large amounts of information; What is urgent; What is urgent but not important, etc. , in order to decide to choose the appropriate way to convey it to the leader. Secondly, the secretary should act as the hub between information systems, strengthen the connection between systems and give play to the network effect. Coordinating the work of various systems will be an important part of modern secretary information service. The secretary must have a comprehensive grasp of the information system of the unit and society. Once the information needed for leadership decision-making is clear, it can be keenly reflected: which system should operate this information faster; What different angles can each system ask for information quickly? What are their respective tasks, etc. At this time, the secretary can not only suggest the leaders to make unified arrangements, but also be authorized by the secretary department or the secretary himself to undertake the overall work of information management. This kind of effective use of the characteristics of organizations and secretaries to do a good job of information coordination avoids the phenomenon that leaders are eager to "get the information they need" and the information system complains that "leaders don't know what information they need", so that the information service serving leaders' decision-making enters a virtuous circle every time.

Fifth, the change from slow to fast contains two meanings. First, we should pay attention to the timeliness of information services and achieve "fast"; Second, try to choose the shortest path to search and use information, and find the "agile" path. Secretarial staff can strive to achieve fast information service in the following two aspects. First of all, understand the rapid development of information retrieval and choose information channels accurately. Secretarial staff should pay attention to the establishment of their own or their own department's information retrieval in their usual writing and meetings, so as not to occupy unnecessary time for finding information. In addition, the secretary should have a basic understanding of the information retrieval, information channels and information institutions at home and abroad, so as to quickly collect and use information when the leadership needs some information. Second, we should understand the convenient service of this system or social information system. In the information society, information institutions are booming, information services are getting better and better, and preferential services are increasing. Secretaries should learn to use these ready-made conditions to solve the problem of slow information service caused by insufficient equipment in their own units, and embody "multi-operation" and "quick effect" in information service to meet the complex requirements of leadership decision-making.

6. Changing from routine to innovation, the secretary's innovative information service is as follows: First of all, the secretary should pay attention to the emerging new technologies and equipment, understand their uses as soon as possible, and make intellectual and technical preparations in advance for rapid and thoughtful information service. Secondly, the secretary should, on the basis of mastering professional theories, extensively dabble in various disciplines of modern management and put forward new suggestions on information management procedures, methods and means to promote its innovation; It can provide a new angle, new ideas and new plans for leaders' decision-making, and assist decision-making. Finally, the secretary should be brave in exploring the law of information service. The development of the times determines the change of leadership decision-making needs and the change of secretary information service. This dynamic development of information service makes it urgent to improve the quality of secretaries. The information age needs intelligent information services, and only compound secretaries can meet the needs of 2 1 century.