Cameron Herold breaks down how CEOs and COOs should divide work: the CEO assesses their own strengths and gaps, then hires a complementary COO. They stay in their lanes, use skip-level meetings carefully, and meet weekly to align without micromanaging each other's domains.
Chapters
I really wish I knew this earlier in my entrepreneurial journey and my journey as the second in command as to what the role was between the COO and the CEO and how they navigate who does what. I'm constantly asked by entrepreneurs in all of my coaching sessions, how do you know what the CEO does? How do you know what the COO does? So let me explain. The starting point is for the CEO to truly understand what areas of the business are they really, really good at and what areas do they suck at and what areas of the business do they really, really love and what areas of the business do they not like at all? And then try to find a second in command or a COO who really loves to do the stuff that you're not good at as the entrepreneur. Try to find a COO who's really good at the stuff that you're not good at as the CEO. And that's the yin and yang approach. So that's the first part. The second part is to stay in your swim lanes. And it's really important for the CEO to not jump into other business areas that are reporting to the COO without following a proper skip-level meeting format. The skip-level meeting is critical for the CEO to actually understand how to go into a meeting that is falling into a direct reporting channel with the COO. So stay in your own swim lanes, ask each other questions, and then the third part is have a regular meeting every single week to stay on the same page with each other, to talk to each other about the reporting areas, to talk to each other about what's going on or what's going wrong or what's going right. With areas that report into you so that you stay on the same page so that you don't have to keep diving into each other's business areas. Those are the key ways that CEOs and COOs can decide who does what, how to stay on the same page, and actually how to not get involved in each other's businesses.
