7 Ways Leaders Turn Around Struggling Businesses

Well, I'm always asked this question and it's one of the stupidest questions I ever asked. By the way, a friend of mine, Joe Polish, always says there's no such thing as stupid questions. There's just stupid people with questions. Well, this isn't stupid people with questions. This is truly what I think is just a stupid question. The question is, what interview questions should I ask to hire a coo? Well, it completely depends on what you're hiring. Again, in my book, the Second Command, I talk about the different types of COOs that are in your organization. But the core of your interviewing needs to focus around three things. The behavioral traits that this person needs to have in their role, which matches the roles and responsibilities, and the core projects or business areas they're going to oversee. You need to focus on the skill set that the person has in terms of the different business areas that are going to be reporting to them. Right? So if they have IT reporting to them, can they at least interface with it? If they have finance reporting to them, do they at least understand finance? They don't need to be a true cfo, but can they at least understand it? Right. So you have that technical bench depth that they need to have. And then thirdly, do they actually live and obsess about the core values like you do inside the organization? Once you know what the behavioral traits are and your company's core values and the actual skills that they need based on their roles and projects they're overseeing, then you can ask the questions related to that kind of stuff. So it's really understanding what you're interviewing for before you're actually worrying about what the questions are. So the real question to ask is what types of things should I look for in a coo? And that's different based on every single organization. So I try to cover it in depth. In the book the Second In Command, if you really dig into that content, it's going to help you out. So think about asking the right questions. That's how you're going to hire the right COO. So there are a few key things that all CEOs have to actually do on a day to day basis, regardless of the size of the company. And I'm always asked, what is the role of the coo? Let me walk you through a core kind of stable of things that all COOs or all second in commands have to do. The first one is they really have to be that trusted confidant with the CEO. So the CEO needs to know that there's someone on their team that they can go to for advice, just kind of a sounding board, someone who's actually going to tell them the brutal facts, as Jim Collins would say. So they need to have that kind of safe space. Because the CEO can't really go to their board all the time with their deepest fears and insecurities. They often can't tell the rest of the leadership team. So they need to have that safe space. And the COO is that safe space. Second thing the COO needs to be is the person who shines the spotlight on the CEO. Right? The CEO's job is to make the CEO iconic, to make them look good. So the CEO has to be the person who's rolling out the tough decisions, the hard decisions, who's communicating the bad news to the company, the bad news to customers, and really allowing the CEO to be the face of the good news and the positive energy. The CEO is to be the Chief energizing officer. The CEO's job is to shine that spotlight on the CEO to make them look good. Another thing the CEO needs to do is operationalize the CEO's vision, the CEO's dream, and the CEO's cultural drive. Right? So the things the CEO wants to make happen, the CEO has to be the one to figure out how to do that. So the CEO's role is to be the how to, the why and the where of the CEO. Right? Another thing the COO needs to do is build harmony and build the consensus within the leadership team. Also, also to foster a good amount of debate and discussion and really kind of getting into the arguments together, but also leaving the rooms and leaving the meetings with having consensus. The CEO has to be able to build that within all the different functional areas. Another core role for the COO is to actually understand all of the functional areas and how they all fit together and how to actually build some consensus within the team, how to build stronger communication and also how to remove obstacles. And Then lastly, the CEO's core role is to think about the rest of the C level and the VP level and how to grow those people's skills. Right? How do we always grow the skill set of the leadership team, regardless of the size of the company? Even if you think of Starbucks at the biggest level, they go through leadership training on a monthly and quarterly basis for their C level team. So the CEO needs to be thinking about the skills that are needed for the company one year out and two years out and making sure that we're always building that skill set and the capacity of the team. And then lastly, they need to always be building that virtual bench. The CEO, because they're so clear on the vision of where the company is going, needs to understand the core people that we're going to need to help us get there. The core people we might need in two years, we might need in 12 months, maybe we need in six months. And they're always building that virtual bench, they're always recruiting, they're always thinking about the future, but executing on today. So those are some of the core roles and responsibilities of every coo, regardless of the size of the organization. All right, so one of the core things that I think COOs need to remember and need to actually show up a little bit differently is none of this shit actually matters. This is just what we do to make money. And by the way, for everybody in your organization that's reporting to you or will be reporting to you, so what we need to do more of as COOs is infuse some fun and having a good time in our day to day operations or day to day running of the business, as well as we need to remember that just like the CEO is the chief energizing officer, we have to stir that culture, Kool Aid inside the organization as well. And if we're always showing up, driving hard and super focused and super busy and, and we're all kind of serious, we're not going to bring out the best of people. But if we can have some fun along the way, if we can laugh a little, if we can praise people a lot, if we can connect with people on their hobbies and their bucket list and what they're doing for fun and who they are as humans and we can just have a good time along the way. People will let their guard down, they'll breathe a little bit. So I think as COOs, the thing we need to bring into the organization more is praising people more, thanking people more, having a little bit more fun along the way. And one of the ways to do that is by working less hours. If you're an entrepreneur and your COO is working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, they're stressed out, they're showing up to the organization stressed, they're over delegating, they're over managing, they're over driving people, push them back down to something that's more reasonable, like a 40 or 50 hour week and get them to detach from the business at nights and weekends to have a life, to have some fun so that the people that are reporting to them are more inspired by them as leaders because they're well rounded, they're having a good time and they're showing up in the organization with good energy instead of stressed out, burned out energy. So that's my big aha. As an operations person or as a coo, we need to have more fun and bring more of that into the organization as well. So I'm often asked by people that are in operations or general areas of the business, how do I become a coo? Well, my belief is the core things you need to do to become a COO are to become very, very good at the operational side of the business and to become very good at what I call the soft skills of leadership. So some of the soft skills of leadership are things like situational leadership coaching, delegation, project management, time management, conflict management. Right. Interviewing, running meetings. I actually have a stable of 12 core modules in my invest in your leaders course that those really are the core skills that anybody wanting to move up into a COO role needs to be good at. Coincidentally, they're also the core 12 skills that every manager or every leader needs to be good at in their role to do well in their career or inside of the organization as well. So it's because of you focusing on those core areas that you can actually grow people, develop people, build consensus, run amazing meetings, get more done with less people faster, and. And you can start to see the business from a different perspective than if you're only focusing on the actual skill set itself. So very different from other core roles. You know, a head of marketing needs to be great at marketing ahead of finance, needs to be great at finance, the head of operations or the head of the organization. The COO needs to be great at leadership and people needs to be great at strategic thinking and planning, needs to be great at kind of the soft skills of leadership. That's what I focus on. That's what I would get you to focus on as well. All right, so in various sizes of companies, the roles of the CEOs can be a little bit different in the startup size company, whether it is a startup that's bootstrapping or a startup that is VC funded or angel funded, there's a little bit of a slight difference or twist in terms of the roles and responsibilities of that coo. So let's talk about the roles and responsibilities of a COO in the startup kind of chaotic growth phase of the organization. So the big thing they need to be able to do is constantly be looking for the jack of all trades, the master of none, hiring great people to bring into the organization that don't necessarily have solid domain expertise. So the CEO is always bringing these people into the startup who can do lots of things. And then as the company scales start to bring in some of that operational depth or the operational skill sets around certain domains or certain sets of slices of the organization, so they need to be able to manage chaos, they need to be able to bring in those early stage people. They also need to be able to kind of communicate the vision to those people so that they can actually be executing quickly. The COO need to be able to really clarify that there's a bit of a bob and weave culture that happens in the startup stage when we're pointing in a certain direction, then we turn 90 degrees and go right, then we turn 90 degrees and go left, and then we backtrack and then we go forward. We're often making it up as we go. And in those early startup stages, so the employees can often feel a little bit bewildered, a little bit upset, a little bit frustrated. And the CEO's job is to make sure that we're constantly clarifying with them that that is the natural path of the organization, but to be aware that they're getting frustrated, to kind of keep them calm and to keep them coordinated. And then lastly, they need to be looking for any of the miscommunication that's happening in the early stages where you have certain people working on business projects that other business areas don't know, because you often don't have that solid leadership team in place that's already got the communications happening. The COO needs to be the glue between each of those different business areas in those early kind of chaotic startup days. So those are some of the things that the CEO needs to be able to do in that early chaotic stage of the startups. So I want to talk a little bit about the CEO COO partnership. And the CEO COO partnership is different than any other relationship that the CEO has in the organization. The CEO's relationship with the CFO or the CTO or the Chief Revenue Officer, completely different than that of the CEO. And here's why my belief is, and it's been proven that a real strong two in the box model where the CEO and COO are very, very cohesive, almost like a true yin and yang where they balance each other out. The CEO provides kind of the brakes to the CEO's gas, that trusted relationship. It's almost inseparable. And, and I think of it in a family unit where the CEO and COO might be like a husband and wife in a traditional family and the other C level executives are like all the other aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters, super important, super tight in terms of the family, but that mother and father just can't be separated. And that's the core difference between the CEO and other relationships and the CEO and COO relationship. So it's super important to bring things into the organization similar to what you would do in a family unit. You have date night, right? You have time for the CEO and COO to spend time together, to spend time doing what each other likes, to have hobbies together, to get out of the office and go golfing or go skiing or go for runs or go do classes together, or just even go hang out in a bar or coffee shop or restaurants. But time to get away from the rest of the team, to decompress and just hang out with each other as friends is super, super important. Almost like the mom and dad going away on vacation without the kids once a year or two, maybe once a quarter, to spend time connecting with each other. Another thing the CEO and CEO need to do is have time away from the kids, right? Like mom and dad need to be away from the kids, to have their debates, to have their big discussions, to talk about the family, to have their arguments, and never to do that in front of the children. The CEO and COO need to have space away from the rest of the leadership team, away from the board, away from the other employees, to really hash things out. So the COO can tell the CEO where they're screwing up, where there maybe is problems within the organization, but to do it in a safe container so then they can have the good discussions, come back into the leadership team, come back into the management team, come back into the rest of the employees and the board as a cohesive force. And that force is what people get behind. So that CEO COO relationship is super important and very different from every other relationship the CEO has in the organization. You definitely need to hire a second in command or a coo, not necessarily the COO title, which is why I call it the Second in command. And even in my book, second in Command, I get into clarifying the difference between a COO or a VP of Operations or General Manager, Director of Operations, President, all the second in command to the CEO, but very different. And let me explain why that is. The roles and responsibilities are attached to the title. The compensation are attached to the title. You, as an entrepreneur, if you're a smaller sized company, need to get a bunch of stuff off your plate. And by the way, the first key hire you need to have is an executive assistant. You've heard me say it before. If you don't have an executive assistant, you are one. So you need to get all the admin work off your plate first before you hire a second in command. After you've got all that admin work off your plate, after you're getting the $15, $20 tasks all off your plate and your time is very full and you realize that you can manage all the business areas, but you can't necessarily grow people. That's the time to bring that second in command into the organization. If your company is smaller, get a basket of things that you need off your plate. Figure out the compensation you're willing to pay for all of those things, and put a title in place that matches the roles and responsibilities in that compensation. If your company is smaller and you're in kind of the 80 to $120,000 phase, it's probably, probably a Director of operations. If you're in more the 120 to $200,000 range, you're probably at VP of Operations. If you're in the 200,000 to $400,000 range, you're definitely more in the COO bracket of what you should actually be paying. Don't give out big titles because that actually raises people's expectations of what the role is. It changes their expectations of what they should be able to be getting paid as well. So that's really the core differences between the different types of titles. But the reason that you as the entrepreneur need to hire the second in command is to get stuff off of your plate that you don't love doing, but is still super critical in the business. Get stuff off of your plate that maybe you're avoiding doing because you're not good at it or you don't love it, but again, is still super critical to the business. And it also frees up your time to work in your area of unique ability or your zone of genius. Find the two or three areas that you love doing that you're really, really good at. Delegate everything else to an executive assistant and a second in command. Get somebody who loves doing those things and they'll actually supercharge that part of the business for you so that you can focus on the few areas that really drive you and you can stay as the true CEO, which is the Chief Energizing officer, to really bring good positive energy into the organization, which you can't do if you're drained because you're working on all the areas that you suck at. Or you don't really love doing. So that's the core reason why you need to get stuff off your plate, is to get somebody who can do those things that are super critical to allow you to do the few things that are most critical, that most fill you with energy that will then supercharge the organization. By the way, if you're loving these videos, check out some more here as well.