The COO role: what it is and how to hire for it

Executive overview

Most CEOs don't know what they actually need from a COO until they've hired the wrong one. The right COO is determined entirely by the CEO's own profile — their gaps, their facing direction, their stage of company.

A COO translates vision into execution. They align departments, remove systemic obstacles, and grow people rather than fixing problems directly.

The COO's job is not to do the work — it is to build the people and systems that do it.

Inward vs. outward facing

• Outward-facing CEOs (Jobs, Musk) need an inward-focused COO who runs operations invisibly.
• Inward-facing CEOs need a COO who can serve as the public face, spokesperson, or business development lead.
• Ben & Jerry's, Shopify (Finkelstein/Lütke), and 1-800-GOT-JUNK are cited as working examples of each pairing.
• The COO is almost always the internal face of the company regardless of external role.

Coordination over subject matter expertise

• A COO is a quarterback: calls plays and passes the ball; doesn't need to be the expert.
• Department heads must be experts in their domain; COOs must be chameleons who can speak enough of every language to ask the right questions.
• The only disciplines a COO is likely to be the smartest person in: communications, people skills, and leadership.
• Use the Socratic method — ask enough to surface what's broken, then let people fix it themselves.

Empowerment, not rescue

• The COO's job is to grow people so they can solve problems, not to solve problems for them.
• A COO who gets involved in every decision will be incapacitated — it is impossible to manage all business areas directly.
• Analogy: a parent teaches kids to cook and do laundry; they don't do it for them indefinitely.
• Getting sucked into firefighting destroys the leverage that comes from the two-in-a-box structure.

Systems thinking

• People don't fail, systems fail — the COO's role is to identify missing or broken systems, not to assign blame.
• The right question is never "why is the sign broken?" but "what system ensures every sign at every location stays working?"
• Constructive laziness is a COO strength: always look for the simplest system that the worst employee in the worst conditions can execute.
• Anything requiring an MBA to follow is too complicated — simple is hard, complicated is easy.
• COOs hired from outside bring a fresh eye for shortcuts that insiders no longer see.

Strategy vs. tactics

• CEO owns strategy (outward, long-horizon); COO owns tactics (internal, execution).
• The COO must toggle between head-up (strategic) and head-down (operational) — like a whale surfacing to breathe, then diving to feed.
• If the CEO pushes the COO into pure tactical firefighting, the two-in-a-box leverage is destroyed.
• The COO can't share the strategic view unless the CEO takes them up the mountain and lets them see it.
• Recalibrate the COO's scope with the CEO regularly — the CEO's priorities shift and the COO must track that.

Working with the board and customers

• The COO brings operational clarity to board meetings: fills in data-based answers the CEO glosses over.
• The COO must never initiate contact with individual board members between meetings — that triangulates against the CEO.
• COOs should talk directly to customers and suppliers to read the tea leaves and feed insight into strategy.

Desirable COO qualities

• Adaptability — absorbs and guards the culture rather than reshaping it to suit themselves.
• Time management — there will always be too much to do; prioritisation is non-negotiable.
• Drive — leverages wins immediately rather than resting on them.
• Likeability — platform for facilitating the whole leadership team depends on people wanting to work with them.
• Honesty — says what others are thinking but won't say; a filtered COO is of limited use.
• Diplomacy — must build trust fast when dropped into an established org, often with senior people who resent the hire.
• Steadiness — even keel at all times; the COO is the counterweight to a visionary CEO's volatility.
• Entrepreneurialism — disciplined enough to execute the plan, flexible enough to spot and capture opportunities that fit the vision.
• Coaching over refereeing — grows people's ability to resolve conflict rather than mandating outcomes.
• Availability — more accessible than the CEO; open door in both directions.

Emotional maturity and culture

• Emotional maturity is a requirement, not a nice-to-have — it rarely exists without having hired, fired, built teams, and attended board meetings.
• Experience measured in years is not the same as maturity; some 27-year-olds outperform executives with 30 years of the same year repeated six times.
• The COO can reshape culture fast: fire five toxic people, build a culture of praise, install accountability systems.
• In early-stage companies with no systems yet, hire a COO who can create systems — that skill differs from one who can run them.
• The person who can run a 1,000-person company is not necessarily the right hire to grow from 10 to 200.