Often, in difficult times and on the shores of general panic, founders of various companies, small and large, begin to urgently look for an operational director. That is, people need a COO to save a drowning company.
But such a specialist should be sought for an organization not during times of decline, but, on the contrary, during periods of takeoff, when the company receives profit in several directions.
The new COO will spend the first 3-6 months ruining the business, not improving it.
We are talking about a person with experience, a professional in his field. Such a specialist will probe the company's processes, check their ground and try to break them in order to find all the bottlenecks - this takes time. And only after understanding what is what in this system, the director will begin to correct the problems.
Consider the situation: the physician data package COO has certain tasks to increase the company's marginality, which can be accomplished by reducing staff and suspending hiring. However, this approach can slow down business development and make it less stable. When layoffs occur in the company, employees begin to worry. This affects productivity: some experience a decrease in productivity and motivation, and some may even leave after their colleagues.
In a prosperous period, such innovations can still be endured: the company is well off, there are many employees, and in general everything returns to normal fairly quickly.
But during a crisis, these processes are more difficult to endure, problems begin to grow rapidly. The company finds itself in a difficult situation, without new ideas, and a new person begins to command, not really knowing the team and not establishing himself as a leader in the eyes of the employees.
During a crisis, the decisive actions for the business must be taken by the owner of the company. Otherwise, the organization will face difficulties, suffer losses and may even fall apart.
Find a COO in your company
A good solution for hiring a COO would be to look for one in your company: motivate and negotiate with the current employee. As a rule, this is a financial or commercial director or a product director - such employees know the niche in which all processes work well, and are often treated quite loyally.
The advantages of such a strategy are: rapid inbreeding, trusting relationships and the absence of any surprises, i.e. the predictability of their actions. The latter is also a disadvantage. If you take your employee, who is completely familiar and predictable in his actions, then the question of how to find, for example, a financial director remains open, because you will not have to wait for any radical changes.
It is also a mistake to hope that absolutely everyone or at least every second person wants to take a leadership position. As practice shows, people refuse such a prospect because they do not want to take on the lion's share of responsibility.
But, a truly interested employee for a leadership role is immediately visible - this is a leader who is ready to take responsibility and initiative, promotes all the company's ideas and goals, has authority among colleagues. Most importantly, such a person charges and activates the entire team and the company, because he clearly sees and understands where and how to grow. If such a person is not immediately visible, then he simply does not exist.
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