Cameron Herold (speaker) explains how COOs can become great through continuous self-improvement: be self-aware of leadership blind spots, use mentors/coaches (he cites Greg Johnson and Leadership and Self-Deception), perform quarterly self-critique, and join peer networks (COO Alliance). He advises entrepreneurs/CEOs to avoid "dropping" projects—allow COOs to ask questions to "catch up" on thinking (who, what, when, where, why, how; inputs: people, time, money, ROI). He promotes work–life integration over perfect balance: create a personal vivid vision (he uses Dec 31, 2024 as example), view life as an "elephant on a teeter-totter," and rotate focus to two areas each month (friends, family, fitness, faith, finance, hobbies).
Chapters
Foreign truly be a great coo. You really need to have the self awareness of the areas that you're falling short as a leader and the areas that you need to continue to grow as a leader. Remember Ray Kroc who built McDonald's, said that when you're green you're growing and when you're ripe, you're rotting. Well, I want you to think about that as well as a leader that every great athlete is always continuing to work on their game, right? They might have a sports coach, a conditioning coach, a mindset coach, a nutrition coach. Well, us as leaders need to continue to grow as well. Maybe it's in managing people, maybe it's in dealing with conflict, Maybe it's learning how to get better at situational leadership or coaching or delegation. Maybe it's working with teams and getting them to collaborate. Maybe it's having some more balance in our lives so that we can show up as a more relaxed leader and a more empathetic leader. Maybe we need to get coaching around some of our blind spots. So different things that we need to think about as a leader. I remember probably 20 years ago I read a book called Leadership and Self Deception that was really pivotal for me. I worked with a couple of coaches or almost like counselors who really helped me with some of my personal issues and my, my interpersonal issues. At work I had a mentor, someone who's being groomed as the COO at Starbucks. And Greg Johnson did calls with me, a one hour call every month for about 18 months. And then every quarter I went down to meet with him in Seattle at his office for a day or he came up to Vancouver to meet us at our office for a day. We did this for a period of 18 months. I was going to conferences, I was reading books. And I started to remember that if it was okay for me to help other people that reported to me grow, if it was okay for me to give them feedback on areas they had to grow, well then it was okay for me to grow as well. So by plugging myself into conferences, by reading books, by getting mentors, by getting coaches, that's where I really grew. And I think that all of us as COOs need to remember that we have to grow as well. It's one of the reasons I Even started the COO alliance was to give this network of other second in commands that COOs could grow as well. But the easiest way for you to grow yourself is to get critical of yourself every quarter. Just make a list of the three things you need to get Better at maybe three things you need to continue doing and be vulnerable and open enough to ask some of your direct reports and ask some of your peers on the leadership team what they see as some of your blind spots are as well. And then then work to get some coaching and development in those areas. Hopefully that helps you out. It has been an ongoing battle for me and something I've probably worked at as a leader for the last 25 years. So we're never done. Hopefully you're still growing, too. All right, so this is a note or a quick little video for all of the entrepreneurs and CEOs out there that the COOs and operators have to work with. So we love you. Let's make sure that you're clear on that. We love you, but wow. When entrepreneurs delegate projects to their COOs or to their team, you really miss a huge, huge opportunity. And here's what happens. More often than not, the entrepreneur has actually been thinking about the project that they want to delegate for two weeks, three weeks even for two minutes or three minutes maybe. They've been rolling it around in their head for two or three days. And then what they tend to do is quickly kind of dump it on the laps of one of their bewildered employees, or they walk up to their CEO and they say, hey, I've got a great idea for you. And they kind of toss it onto their plate. But what they forget is that the CEO and often the rest of the team, we need to catch up with you. So we need to ask you a bunch of questions to understand the project. Now remember, you as the entrepreneur and CEO, have been rolling that question around in your mind for a fair bit. You've been thinking about it and bobbing and weaving. And when you delegate it to us, you've already done your thinking. So when we're asking you the questions, we're not arguing with you, we're not debating you. We're merely trying to catch up with you. So the biggest gift you can give your CEO is the gift of letting them ask you a bunch of questions so they understand the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the project. They understand the inputs that you're thinking about, or they can talk to you enough so they understand the people, time and money and what the ROI you're expecting to get. So let them ask you the questions and let them catch up with you. Once they do, they can take the project and run with you. But don't drop the projects onto the laps of them and run away, because that's when they're going to drive you crazy is having to come back to you multiple times to figure out what you were thinking. All right, so I want to talk to the CEOs out there, and I also want to talk to the CEOs out there about balance. You know, we often hear about this idea of a work life balance. And I don't think there is such a thing as really having that pure work life balance. You know, maybe there's work life integration or something like that, but the only way you can be balanced is to have everything kind of always working perfectly, right. So I kind of see it like an elephant on a bit of a teeter totter, right? The balance is a little bit of the going back and forth, not staying perfectly balanced all the time. Because if you have that as your expectation, you're only going to be falling short of that expectation. So here's the way I approach trying to have some balance or work life integration or having some balance with the things that are important with me in my life. What I first start out with is thinking about my friends, family, fitness, faith, finance, you know, all the different areas of my life that matter to me. My spouse, spending time with my kids, my hobbies, et cetera. And then I draft a vivid vision for my personal life. So that personal life vivid vision, it's like a five pager describes my entire life and what I look like as Cameron Herald Three years from now, mine currently is December 31, 2024. Describing my entire life. And then I picture myself like this elephant on a little bit of a balance board or a teeter totter and just trying to keep things roughly in balance at different times. And here's what I really try to do. Every month or so, I pick two new areas to focus on. So last month when I was in my book launch for my book the second in Command, and I was really pushing the team to close out the year hard, it was all about work. Now I also made sure that I was spending a fair amount of time with my wife because she was having to live through that. But my friends got pushed aside, my kids kind of got pushed aside, some of my fitness got pushed a little bit aside. But the balance in that month or so was really about driving hard on the business and spending a lot of time with my wife. And now I'm recalibrating. In the last month, I've spent some time with some really good friends. I've spent a lot of time checking in and hanging out with my kids. And I'm really working on my fitness side and I'm kind of not letting the business slide a little bit. But I know it's on autopilot and I'm okay with this little back and forth and meandering kind of bobbing and weaving instead of trying to think that I'm always going to have it in balance. So hopefully those tips help you the personal vivid vision and just allow yourself to be like an elephant on a teeter totter versus expectations that you're always going to be perfectly balanced because you never will be.
