Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

The First 90 Days of the COO's Life is Like... | Sean Seamer, Global COO Brainlabs (Podcast 452)

25 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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A short podcast transcript between Sean Seamer and Cameron Herold about how a new COO (or leader) should approach their first 90 days: avoid preset job descriptions or early decisive actions, prioritize listening and relationship-building, understand what motivates existing staff, and phase decisions — make none in the first 30 days, test hypotheses in month two, and implement low-risk, high-value changes in month three.

Chapters

We weren't going to write a job description we weren't going to write a 90 day plan it was about me getting in me just listening. It's that old saying you've got two ears and one mouth and I really focused on trying to build relationships with with the people that were in the business already trying to understand what made them tick figuring out how I could help them. It was really about coming with no preconceived notions no set job description let's just get in and see how this goes listen build relationships and then find areas to add value instead of wading in with the size 12 boots or whatever that saying is you know in.
The first 30 days the the leader coming in should actually make zero decisions. It's just meet everybody really learn the business. Month two it's kind of test a lot of your hypotheses stuff you want to do and month three put some of the easy ones in place like the low hanging fruit low pain in the ass factor decisions.