Why industry knowledge matters for Chiefs of Staff
This is a long one. Grab a coffee.
I wish I'd known more about the aerospace value chain when I became a Chief of Staff. My boss probably did too.
As a Chief of Staff you may have come from a senior line role where you'd acquired credibility. Or maybe you came from outside the sector, and you brought a valuable fresh perspective.
Those reasons may well be what got you hired. They won't help you excel as a Chief of Staff. Now you need depth AND breadth. You need to be able to talk in the language of the CFO, the COO, the CMO, and you need to be able to context-switch skilfully. Chiefs of Staff need to be (just) deep (enough) in the content.
The knowledge gap that nobody talks about
The Chief of Staff role demands a unique kind of expertise. You're not expected to be the technical authority in engineering. You're not the finance expert with years of FP&A experience. But you do need to understand how these functions interact, where the pressure points lie, and what keeps each executive awake at night.
This creates an uncomfortable reality. You're operating at the highest level of the organisation, yet you might lack the foundational knowledge that everyone assumes you possess. When the CEO asks you to evaluate a strategic proposal from the business development team, you need to grasp not just the commercial implications but also the operational constraints, the financial risks, and the competitive landscape.
In my case, not understanding the aerospace value chain meant I couldn't see how a supplier negotiation in one division would cascade through our production schedule. I couldn't anticipate why our head of operations pushed back so forcefully on what seemed like a minor timeline adjustment. The connections weren't obvious to me because I lacked the mental model of how the industry actually worked.
Why breadth matters more than depth
The Chief of Staff operates differently from other senior roles. A VP of Engineering can afford to be exceptionally deep in their domain. A Chief Marketing Officer lives and breathes go-to-market strategy. But a Chief of Staff must traverse all these territories.
You're the person who sits in on the board meeting in the morning and the product review in the afternoon. You translate between functions. You spot the misalignment between what finance promised and what operations can deliver. You identify when two executives are solving the same problem in incompatible ways.
This requires a different kind of knowledge architecture. Think of it as having a well-organised index rather than having memorised every page of the encyclopaedia. You need to know enough to ask the right questions, to sense when something doesn't add up, and to connect dots that others miss because they're too embedded in their own function.
The challenge is that nobody teaches you this. There's no "Introduction to Being a Chief of Staff" module that covers how your industry actually works. You're expected to absorb it somehow, through osmosis perhaps. But osmosis is a terribly inefficient learning strategy when you're already working 60-hour weeks.
Where to start: know yourself first
It's a tall order. So here's what I'd recommend starting with.
If you don't know already, figure out how you learn. Once you know, act on it. Don't waste time reading annual reports if you don't learn that way. Listen to the earnings call instead, or choose a podcast.
This isn't trivial advice. I spent my first month forcing myself through dense industry reports because that's what serious executives do. Except I retained almost nothing. My eyes glazed over by page three. I'd finish a 40-page document and remember only the executive summary.
Then I discovered I learn through conversation and audio. I started listening to earnings calls on platforms like Seeking Alpha, where I could hear the tone, the hesitations, the questions that analysts asked. I retained multiples more information in half the time.
Some people learn by doing. If that's you, consider volunteering for a cross-functional project early on. You'll learn the business by getting your hands dirty. Others learn visually. For them, asking someone to sketch out the value chain on a whiteboard will be worth more than any written document.
The method matters less than the self-awareness. Stop doing what you think you should do and start doing what actually works for your brain.
Use AI as your private tutor
Ask your chatbot of choice to create you a cheat sheet for your industry - use the prompt at the bottom of this article. Large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity can generate tailored industry primers in minutes. The key is asking the right question. Don't just type "tell me about aerospace". Be specific. Ask for the value chain. Request an explanation of margin structures. Have it identify the three biggest challenges facing your industry in the next 18 months.
What you're doing is bootstrapping your mental model. You're creating the scaffolding onto which you'll hang all the specific knowledge you'll acquire through experience. With a basic framework in place, every conversation you have will make more sense. When the head of supply chain mentions a bottleneck, you'll understand where that sits in the broader system.
The beauty of using AI for this is that you can iterate. If the first explanation doesn't click, ask it to explain again using a different analogy. Request examples. Have it create a comparison between your industry and another one you already understand.
Treat it like having a patient expert on call who never tires of your questions. Because in your actual job, you won't have unlimited opportunities to ask basic questions without looking underprepared.
Go deeper, strategically
Dive deeper into each section, using your learning method to get you familiar (enough) with the key concepts so that you can see how the pieces fit together.
Notice I said "familiar enough", not "expert level". You're not trying to replace the functional leaders. You're trying to understand the territory well enough to operate effectively within it.
Choose your deep dives strategically. If your CEO is obsessed with unit economics, make sure you truly understand how costs flow through your business. If the company is facing a major technology transition, invest time in grasping the technical trade-offs involved, even if you're not an engineer.
I found it helpful to identify the three or four topics that came up repeatedly in executive meetings but that I didn't fully grasp. Then I'd spend dedicated time on just those areas. One week I'd focus on understanding our regulatory environment. Another week I'd dig into how our sales compensation structure influenced behaviour in ways that surprised everyone.
The goal is to eliminate your blind spots in high-stakes areas. You can afford to be fuzzy on topics that rarely come up. You cannot afford to be confused about the core dynamics that drive your business.
The framework approach
You can't know everything about an entire company on day one (or even day 100), but you can have a framework that will help you tune out the noise.
This is perhaps the most important point. Perfect knowledge is impossible. Comprehensive expertise is unrealistic. But a solid framework is achievable and incredibly powerful.
A framework helps you triage information. When you're copied on 150 emails a day, you need to know which five actually matter. When three people bring you conflicting accounts of the same situation, you need a way to evaluate whose perspective is most relevant.
Your industry knowledge framework acts as a filter and a map. It tells you what's signal and what's noise. It shows you how the pieces relate. It helps you ask better questions and spot important patterns.
The Chiefs of Staff who excel aren't necessarily the ones who know the most facts. They're the ones who have the best frameworks for making sense of complexity. And frameworks can be learned, systematically and deliberately, even under pressure.
Start now. Your future self will thank you.
Here’s the prompt: Please create a comprehensive single-page industry cheat sheet for [specific industry]. This should serve as a complete reference guide for someone who needs to quickly understand and speak knowledgeably about this industry. Include:
Market fundamentals: size, growth rate, geographic distribution, market maturity, and fragmentation level
Competitive landscape: key players, market share distribution, recent mergers/acquisitions, entry barriers
Regulatory environment: governing bodies, critical regulations, compliance requirements, upcoming legislation
Business model analysis: revenue streams, cost structures, value chain, profitability drivers, pricing models
Technology landscape: critical technologies, digital transformation status, innovation trends, disruption potential
Customer/client dynamics: buyer behaviour, segmentation, decision-making factors, changing expectations
Challenges and opportunities: major industry challenges, emerging threats, growth opportunities, risk factors
Sustainability considerations: ESG factors, industry-specific environmental impacts, sustainability initiatives
Essential terminology: key industry-specific terms, acronyms, metrics, and KPIs with brief definitions
Strategic considerations: critical success factors, partnership models, competitive advantages, future outlook
Format as concise bullet points with actual data and insights. Ensure all information fits on one page while maintaining sufficient detail to provide genuine value as a quick reference tool.
