The COO role has expanded enormously in scope and strategic influence today. Once focused narrowly on day-to-day operations, COOs now often oversee everything from corporate strategy to customer success.
While specific accountabilities differ across companies, the modern COO generally focuses on four core areas to enable organizational dexterity, fuel growth and future-proof operations:
Streamline Processes & Scale Systems
COOs bird dog operational efficiency. They examine workflows end-to-end to eliminate unnecessary steps through automation, consolidation or simplification.
Additionally, COOs architect infrastructure, policies and technologies to enable scale. They anticipate future capacity needs based on growth trajectories and build in a buffer room.
The savviest COOs embed metrics tracking and continuous improvement programs into systems organization-wide to rapidly surface areas needing refinement.
Promote Cross-Functional Alignment
Siloed teams slow companies down and can actively work at odds. COOs actively identify and remedy misalignments across business units, functions and geographies.
They analyze interdependencies, map workflows and reinforce shared objectives across departments. COOs also often facilitate quarterly business reviews and planning cycles to reveal disconnects and catalyze problem-solving.
Additionally, COOs monitor KPIs across groups to ensure all oars point the same direction. When metrics appear mismatched, they diagnose why and get appropriate leaders on the same page.
Construct Responsive, Insight-Driven Strategy
Rather than theoretical scenarios, effective strategic planning draws directly from customer, market and operational signals.
COOs synthesize insights from across the front lines – sales, service, product usage, etc. – to ground strategic discussions in reality. They pressure test assumptions and build progressively detailed operating plans off strategic roadmaps.
This full-funnel visibility also allows COOs to rapidly mobilize responses to market changes. By picking up on signals quickly and understanding downstream implications thoroughly, they help recalibrate strategy to seize emerging opportunities.
Galvanize a High-Performance Culture
Everything COOs touch influences culture, given their cross-functional vantage point. They reinforce priorities through KPIs set, processes designed and decisions made.
COOs must exemplify desired values and incent the right behaviors across managers – whether tenacity, innovation or accountability. They also establish infrastructures for transparency, idea flow and talent mobility.
Organizations often take on the temperament of their COO – disciplined, collaborative and outcome-oriented. Setting this tone provides a critical assist for the CEO’s broader cultural aspirations.
Cultivating Partnerships Across Functions
COOs oversee operations, but they do not directly control all activities driving execution. Marketing, technology, product development, finance and other functional groups contribute enormously to organizational outcomes.
Navigating these matrixed relationships diplomatically while still driving accountability requires savvy influence skills. Successful COOs carefully cultivate partnerships across functions.
They make time to understand peers’ priorities, challenges and incentives. They identify intersections of shared goals to collaborate towards. COOs also showcase how operational discipline enables innovation in technology, customer experience and product development.
Additionally, COOs actively advocate for resources and headcount for strained functions based on front-line needs. They may challenge peers but ultimately have their back.
Finally, COOs highlight cross-functional interdependencies and gather regular input from heads of key departments. They break down assumptions about workflow hand-offs through process analyses and mystery shopping.
Acting as ambassador, advocate and aligner across functions amplifies a COO’s ability to enhance execution. Savvy COOs gather insights, coordinate plans and motivate peers towards operational excellence – not through brute force, but consensus building.
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