Cory Raggi became a COO and discovered the role isn't about facilities or logistics. Modern COOs become what the CEO needs: they bring order and structure to companies with great talent but no internal coordination. The job is about people and business, not maintenance.
Chapters
If you'd asked me five or 10 years ago, would you ever be a COO, I probably would have laughed at you, like, oh, you haven't met me. And it turns out that being a COO can mean a lot of different things. So falling into it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, personally and professionally. I almost feel like we need to retitle it, like chief operating officer. It sounded like buildings and maintenance and vendors and, you know, logistics of things that were so far away from people. And I am a lover of all things people. And when I started interviewing and learned that the COO's role is really to become what the CEO needs, it completely shifted my understanding. They didn't need those things as much. What they needed was somebody to bring some order and some organizational structure and some process to a company that had really great talent, but they were missing that kind of connector that wasn't focused on the client. That was focused on the business and the people. My first impression of it maybe was outdated to today's business needs, and thank God I had the opportunity to get past my first impression there because I was so wrong. Nobody's relying on me for anything maintenance because they know I am not good at those things.
