Cameron Herold walks CEOs through building trust with a new COO: revisit interview notes, run trust exercises around truth-telling, share past failures, swap DISC profiles, ask personal ice-breakers like greatest fear and hometown, and clearly define who decides what. Transparent structure prevents power struggles.
Chapters
How will you and your new second in command work best together to achieve everything you want for your company? The key is to take an intentional approach, so start by revisiting all the information you've gathered during the interview process about what the COO is like. Use that information to start building healthy communication and strong trust from the beginning, which is particularly important if other members of the leadership team feel they've lost power to the coo. Engage in trust exercises so you're both okay with telling the truth all the time. Open up to each other about your past failures. Teach each other skills that you're strong in. Walk each other through your Colby Disc or strength finder profiles, focusing on your weaknesses. Tell each other about your upbringing. Have each team member answer five questions about their personal lives. Sample questions include your hometown, first job, worst job, number of siblings, greatest fear, and something that nobody else knows about you. Everyone, including all C level executives, needs to be on the same page about the different roles and responsibilities of the CEO and coo. You can only avoid stepping on each other's toes if everyone in the company knows who to contact for what, who makes which decisions, and who is and isn't involved in different areas.
