← Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Ep. 508 - Sarah Harris - Uncovering the Secrets of Successful COOs: Empathy, Autonomy, and Impact
00:53:05
Loading summary
Transcript53 lines
- [00:00]
Cameron Herold
Hey, it's Cameron Herald, the host of the Second in Command podcast. Before we dive in, there's something you need to know. If you're a coo, VP Operations, or you're in any role where you're the second in command to the CEO, the COO alliance is the place for you. If you're the integrator to the visionary, you're going to want to join us. The COO alliance is the world's leading community for the second in command. We've had over 500 members like you join from 17 countries to grow their skills, connections and confidence. You'll get the tools, friendships, and a 10x guarantee to ensure that you get your money's worth. Go to cooalliance.com to learn more and see if you qualify. You can even book a free call with our team to ask questions. Now, let's jump into this week's episode.
- [00:44]
Sarah Harris
So I paused on that and I just said to him, I don't feel like I'm being defensive, but obviously that's how it's coming across. And I sort of said, you know, I just brought us back to the conversation. And then a couple of days later I sent him just a follow up on Slack to show that I'd reflected on the conversation and why I felt he was picking up on whatever he was picking up on. I think it's. You don't have to own it, but I think you can acknowledge someone else's experience. I think it's okay. Oh, I'm really pleased that you've told me that's how you feel. I really wasn't aware that that was something I was doing or something that, that I've even noticed. I need to go away and think about it, if I'm honest. But I will, and I will come back to you with any reflections. I think it's that. Take it away. You don't have to respond in the moment like anything. Right, right. Thank you. Let me think on that and I'll come back. That's something I'll need to reflect on.
- [01:38]
Savannah Brewer
Welcome to the Second in Command podcast produced by the COO alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herold. In the second in command podcast, we talk to top COOs who share the insights, strategies and tactics that made them the Chief behind the Chief. And now here's your co host, COO of a multi eight figure remote company and alumni member of the COO Alliance, Savannah Brewer. On today's episode of the Second in Command podcast, I'm joined by Sarah Harris. She is a seasoned fractional and consultant COO with a really unique blend of operational expertise and leadership psychology. She has helped scale high growth agencies, tech firms and public sector organizations through the messiness of growth, whether that's restructures, acquisitions or building systems from scratch. She's also a certified counselor and coach. So she brings a really unique rare depth to the role. Making sense of patterns, human behavior. Not just going in and solving the problem immediately, but really understanding the root from the top down. In this conversation, it was a really, really enjoyable conversation. She actually is the COO of an agency in the E commerce space called OM where she has been working there for over a year as their fractional coo. And I have seen close hand just how much of an impact she's made on this company. So in this conversation we talk about a wide range of topics from leading with both structure and heart for people, talking about delivery models, how to create those, recreate them so that your team is thriving. Also creating true psychological safety and healthy culture and the power of quiet observation, asking questions when stepping into a new COO role. We also talk about the patterns that she sees in founder led companies and really how to work from moving into working on the business, not just working in the business. And this one is truly a masterclass in sustainable, heartfelt leadership. So if you are interested in knowing how to be a better leader, how to come into a company and really assess and make sure that you're focusing on the right changes and adjustments, this one is certainly one you're going to enjoy. Foreign we are live with Sarah Harris. Welcome to the show.
- [04:09]
Sarah Harris
Hi. Thanks for having me.
- [04:12]
Savannah Brewer
Yeah. I am so excited about this episode. Specifically, this one hits a little close to home because we have a little bit of a relationship just by the fact that I have heard so much about you from my dad. Actually, you are the COO currently of my dad's company, which is an agency that's been around for over a decade. They've got I don't know how many, how many employees do they have?
- [04:37]
Sarah Harris
About 40 odd now.
- [04:39]
Savannah Brewer
40 or so. Okay. And yeah, they're in the E Commerce space. And I've heard a lot over the years of different company transitions and the highs and the lows of being really close to a father who is an entrepreneur. And you recently came in as you o during a really big transition time and I've gotten to hear about just a lot of the really cool success and changes that have really happened as you stepped in. So this was an episode that I was so Excited to see if I could get you onto the show. And just for myself, my own curiosity to learn so many of the principles and the ways that you think about things, because you have a very unique background, which I would love to kind of give a little light to here in a second. Really unique background. And when I heard it myself, it just expanded my horizons in terms of playing the long game. And there's so many different routes in life that we can go. And all the little pieces that you've picked up to really be able to do what you're doing is really, really cool. So all of that being said, I'll hand over the mic to you to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. Who do you serve?
- [05:46]
Sarah Harris
Yeah, sure. Thank you. Lovely intro. I mean, it's funny, I think I'm one of those COOs who didn't actually set up to become a CEO. I started in commercial roles, really always within professional services environments. But I became the person who could solve sort of deeper business problems. People would come to me to bring a level of order to the chaos and just help teams performing under that pressure. And I guess it was that instinct that eventually led me into my first managing director role. And you sort of mentioned my unique background at the point that I got promoted to my managing director role. I was already a qualified therapist. And when I took that role, I then decided to train as a coach too. I guess the counseling gave me depth and empathy and an understanding of how people think and lead and often get in their own way. But coaching was going to give me the tools to build, I guess what I would call resilient, healthy, high performing teams. I really believe that the best leaders are the ones who know how to get the best out of others. And that's what I wanted to learn to do as well. So I'm personally very passionate about helping people stay self actualize and reach their full potential. So that's probably a little bit about that uniqueness. And I earned my leadership stripes, my early leadership stripes in a tech business. And it was there that I then started to learn how to think iteratively, how to test and learn fast, how to build delivery models that could scale without burning people out. And I guess that's where things started to click for me. That blend, that commercial mindset, the people first leadership and that structural thinking then just start automatically pulled me deeper into operational work. And I realized I had a knack for solving problems and building things that last. And that's how I ended up being a coo so as you see, there was a squiggly career, as they call it.
- [07:39]
Savannah Brewer
Amazing. And you work with multiple companies at the same time?
- [07:43]
Sarah Harris
Yes, I chose to go fractional once I started my COO journey so I could broaden my experience and figure out what kind of company I wanted to grow with. And so majority of the businesses that I've been working with are professional services because that's my expert expertise. Most of founder led, that's also my expertise. And really that's what led me to omg. And I've now been at OMG for well over a year now.
- [08:07]
Savannah Brewer
Wow. I cannot believe it's been a year. And I'm flies. Okay, beautiful. And when you say founder led businesses is kind of your niche in terms of the companies that you're working with, what specifically does that mean? Like the founders are still involved in the business.
- [08:20]
Sarah Harris
Exactly that. So the founder or founders are still leading. They've taken on leadership roles. Their CEO or their CEO cgo. So chief of growth. And they're heavily involved or maybe they're, maybe they're working as managing director. But essentially the business is being led by the founder who started the business. And that's beautiful and challenging in loads of ways. And that's where I guess I sort of learned my own approach. Working with CEOs is. Is one kettle of fish. Working with the CEO when they're also the founder of the business and it's their baby is a different kettle of fish.
- [08:57]
Savannah Brewer
How would you describe the differences between the two?
- [08:59]
Sarah Harris
There is, there's a lot at stake when it's a founder's business. But more than that, I think it's emotional. You know, the business has been born from them in a way, from their hopes, their dreams, perhaps their early insecurities, their family dynamics. And there where you can see where my psychology comes out because actually founders build themselves into their businesses. And so quite often even a decade on, you will see some of the bottlenecks in the business, the way decisions are made or not being made, the way people communicate, the team dynamics, quite often without even realizing that can intrinsically be connected to the founder and everything that they've built into the business. And some of what they build in the businesses is beautiful and wonderful and passionate. And some of it can create blockers. It no longer serves the business. And that's where I get really excited because I love that, working in that space because that's where sort of people and business me, I love that.
- [10:01]
Savannah Brewer
And it's kind of a funny example to compare it to, but yesterday I was over at my friend's house and she's watching the man that I'm dating. She has his cat. And I was like, he came over and he's kind of like, he's got some dirt on his paws and he's just chilling. And I was like, man, you are the exact representation of your owner. Like your dad, you know, they are just like, chill, he sometimes walks around barefoot, he's got kind of a hippie vibe. And they just like the same kind of personality. And it's so, you know, I see that a lot with animals. They pick up on how the owner is and those personalities can often be so similar. And I see that somewhat. And this is kind of a funny comparison, but there is this level of, you know, you're injecting into your culture and your people, your beliefs and the way you operate, your energy, your principles, your values, all of those things are being transmuted constantly. And so I could totally see that being the case. And I would love to hear maybe an example or two of if OMG or a different company that you've been with, maybe some of those things where you can see it holistically over the company. Like this is a problem, but we can kind of tie it up to, you know, the beliefs of the founders or something that is no longer serving.
- [11:17]
Sarah Harris
I mean, there's a, there's, I think of a specific example. I mean there's, there's a series of things that you will see when it's, when the CEO is a founder, there's unintentionally blocking. So. So Brett is the CEO of OMG Commerce and he is a really hands on leader and he's passionate and he's fast moving and it's part of what makes OMG great. But when I joined the business, what I could see was that he was so in the weeds with sales and delivery decisions and here and here and here and everywhere. But what that actually did was that it disempowered others, kind of created mixed signals and then that inadvertently created bottlenecks. And that sort of ties into decision making as well, because. Which I'm happy to come back to. But just making decisions within a business is quite often a piece that is really, really overlooked in terms of operational structure. And I think as COOs, it's up to us to really have a think about the decision making process and empowering people and creating clarity for who could be making decisions, how and when. In founder led businesses, the CEO is quite often the person making the decisions. And people will continually kick the can down the road, or up the road, as it were, to the CEO to make decisions, and then the CEO will make the decisions. But what that does is it disempowers teams. People are learning how to ask what to do, they're not learning how to solve problems and they're not learning to take accountability. And then you end up with a culture that can completely lacks accountability. Everyone's paralyzed, no one's really driving anything forward. And then you get a CEO that's completely burnt out and feels like the business would fall apart without them. There's a lot of times, as you can see, that a CEO and a founder CEO won't necessarily realize they're even creating these bottlenecks. But it's only when you start digging in and get, especially as a coo, you get brought in to sort processes out and look at your systems and, you know, fix anything that's broken. And typically it's much deeper than that and it's communication.
- [13:16]
Savannah Brewer
I could see that and I've experienced that in my, yeah, my own experiences coming in, getting hired to, well, we need you to come fix the client delivery system. And then I come in and I'm like, well, I cannot fix the client delivery system because first of all, the culture here is all sorts of messed up. Like if I fix this system, there's no accountability or people who are going to be willing to even follow the system. So we've got to start up there. When you come in and you've got a CEO, CEO, our founders that they bring you in because they think you're going to come and fix all of these processes. And maybe, you know, they've got a couple key things that they're hiring you for specifically. But then you come in and you're like, well, actually there's this other thing that we need to focus on. What is your approach or kind of initial strategy to come in and understand what those things are. And then secondly, what's your process for bringing that to the founders and getting them aligned on what actions need to be taken?
- [14:14]
Sarah Harris
I'll start with the last part of that question and come back to it. But approach entering a business like that, it's observation. It's tempting to come into a business, especially when you're fractional and you're sort of dropped into a scenario here. Quick, we need a COO and start doing. And I'm a real doer. I love getting things done, but I think it's important to pause and to observe and get curious about all the things that aren't being said in the business. If the same operational issues keep coming up, I would say it's probably emotional and not procedural. And as a coo, I think it's my job to tune into the patterns underneath those problems. So what's not being said in a room? Who am I seeing holding, backing meetings? Where are people avoiding hard conversations and calling it politeness? So those things that sit under the surface, they don't show up in one to ones necessarily. You'll see them in maybe missed deadlines or messy ownership, a clunky delivery. And so typically I will observe and then I will lead some space. And I guess this is a little bit where my sort of coaching and counseling come in. I find it helpful to use post mortems and team retrospectives not just to review what's happened, but to ask, well, what felt hard during that or what didn't get voiced early enough, really trying to find where those real insights live. Because actually that's where you can start shifting behaviors and not just the system. And then once you start getting those insights, hey, you've got data. And data makes it much easier to go back to your leadership and say, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I'm hearing.
- [15:51]
Savannah Brewer
This reminds me of a conversation I had with, with Cameron at a point where I was in my career looking to shift into something new and asking him about what would it look like if I started to do some fractional COO work or even go in on a new full time position. Because at my kind of my larger success in my career, so to say, I built that company from employee number two. And so I was there from the beginning. And so jumping into something, like you said, just being dropped in, like where do you start? And he said, you know, you need to find a company that's willing to let you just observe for 90 days. And I'm like, 90 days? That seems like a long time. But now that I've had a few of these experiences under my belt, now it is so important because if you go in and you start fixing problems, like the immediate problem that you see, it's really just a band aid on it and you're going to have the underlying current of issues still happening. There's also this, you know, the echo chamber I think is something that sounds like you come in and you kind of disrupt a little bit. Because if you're a founder that's been in or even, you know, you're on a team for years as an Employee you can't sometimes see outside of the same. You're seeing the same problems all the time, you're with the same team. And so having someone come outside like yourself with a fresh set of, you know, eyes and perspective and you don't have your ideas about, well, this employee is quiet because they just are like this. But you actually come in. And there's some curiosity in my experiences where I've gotten kind of is sticky when I've first come into companies. And I'm also just like, I'm learning myself. Where do I want to put my attention and where do I want to hold back? How do you allot your time when you're coming in? And I mean, OMG has from my understanding, a pretty complex company. It's an agency, any agency. There's, you know, a lot of different moving pieces and you're working with clients, so you've got client fires that you're putting out. Where do you put your time in order not to get caught in the weeds? Because I also imagine that some of those rearranging departments and you know, moving people around, there's a lot of logistical things that happen in something like that. With you also having other clients that you're working with, how do you make sure that you're focusing on the highest level things and delegating properly?
- [18:12]
Sarah Harris
That's a really good question. I guess it's something that I do without really thinking about how I do it. So thank you for the challenge. I mean, you're kind of living in two timelines at once. And as a coo, I think you are anyway because you've got the big picture future strategy thinking. But then you're also sort of in the weeds fixing what's just broken an hour ago. So that is that constant context switching which aligns well with my personality type. But I. So I think I sort of do that naturally. But it's. I do sometimes catch myself being too in and pulling myself out. I think, you know, you nailed it. It's really about delegating. And usually when I'm brought into businesses there was a huge piece around leadership development and I guess this ties in again to our earlier conversation, particularly around founder led CEOs and founder led businesses that you don't necessarily have the structure of managers, or perhaps you have a few that were good at their job and just promoted up, but don't necessarily understand what it means to be a leader. And so I'm usually brought in and spend a lot of my energy and time working directly with the leadership team and essentially lead the rest of the business through them, get them to pass it down, to cascade it down, rather than get into. Because the minute I start trying to lead further down in the business, then I'm stuck in the weeds. Then I'm dealing with sort of tactical problems in the moment. And so what I try to do is make sure that my focus is how I can coach the leaders of that business to be coaching their people. And so for them to get a little bit in the way, I always say to people at my level or those that have just moved up into a leadership position, you want to try and find the balance of being on the business rather than in the business. And as soon as I find that I'm in the business, I have to essentially extract myself, understand what's needed for me in that moment, probably accountability and permission and an invitation to try something, to make a decision and step back out and make sure I'm back on it again. Because it's really difficult to be doing the strategic stuff when you're completely stuck down here. And then I guess to your other point about being fractional and having other clients, I mean, that's just. It's just time management. It's just being boundaried. And I'm sure that's a word you hear constantly on this podcast. It's about being boundaried. And some weeks I'm really, well, boundaried. And you know what? Some weeks I'm not. And that's also okay. It balances out. Yeah, they're just being rigorous about how you're spending your time.
- [20:41]
Savannah Brewer
Sure. One of the things that I found really, really helpful in some of my first couple fractional roles was I do this differently now, but in the beginning, I did it hourly, like, you get 10 hours a week. And I kind of made the mistake of I'm going to be managing and kind of like coaching the leadership team, but then I'm also going to be kind of like jumping in to fix things. And that made it really complicated. However, the beauty of that was, for the first time that I did that, it was different from my previous role, where I was working 60 to 80 hours a week. And I was just. Any problem that came up, I was like, I'll do it. I'll do it. And kind of maybe similar to Brett just being in the weeds of everything, because I had the time for that. But then once I had this constraint, I really had to step back and really think about, where does my time go? And that was such an amazing lesson. For me and putting constraints around it. So if you're a current, even full time coo, start playing with putting some constraints around. Like if you only had 20 hours of work this week, what would you do? But you still had to get the same results or you wanted your team to step up in a bigger way. With you working five hours this week, what would you do? What would you do differently? And it starts to get you out of the the weeds of all of those different pieces. I would love to hear because you were talking about working with the management team and not even fr But I just think this is so important for full time COOs as well to really be coaching your leaders because if you're not, you're going to get stuck and I've found myself there before where I'm like can't hire fast enough to get myself out of the thing that I was doing. To scale, what are some of those give us one or two principles or most common leadership strategies, thought processes, beliefs that you're instilling when you come into a company into leadership that you're wanting to cascade down.
- [22:32]
Sarah Harris
Feedback is huge one for me. Building feedback early and often. I think we said it earlier but most operational issues are communication issues in disguise. And so if you don't build a culture of feedback early on, and I mean real feedback, not just sort of top down updates, then you just end up papering over problems instead of solving them. And so for me building a culture of feedback is about creating an environment where people feel, feel safe giving feedback in every direction, including upwards. And it's on your leaders to model that and to show that feedback isn't conflict, it's clarity and it's not always easy. It's a skill and it's a skill that can be learned. I would always recommend that you bake feedback into the system and not just the culture. So that might be instilling regular retrospectives with the team or in your one to ones as a manager, ask for, ask for feedback for yourself. Ensuring that you've got performance reviews and performance management in the business or just lightweight rituals that are making reflection a part of the day to day. So yeah, I think generating the feedback of culture I love radical candor and I use it in work and out of work as a model of giving feedback and really instilling that into your leadership team and modeling it for managing a business and leading the business from them, from them. Looking down, your people aren't growing if you're shying away from giving them feedback. And it should Be timely and it should be direct. So that's huge. And I really push that a lot. So that's one. I mean, we spoke a bit about decisions, I guess, systemizing your decision making and really understanding where the bottlenecks really live. Who's deciding what, what's the threshold for escalating something or what context is needed to make a decision. If you're only teaching people what to do, then you're creating that dependency. So, yeah, I think also making sure that you're really clear on what a good decision looks like, making sure that your leadership team know what decisions they can make and then inviting them to do the same further down so that you've got a constant space of accountability throughout. I think those are probably two of the biggest areas that I work with new leaders on or sort of forming leadership teams. Feedback and decision making, those are great.
- [24:51]
Savannah Brewer
And I think it's really common that teams start experiencing not feeling heard or feeling unsafe to give feedback, especially when a company's gone through scaling really quickly or a lot of change. What have you found to be some of the reasons why team members aren't giving feedback, and how do you find that out?
- [25:10]
Sarah Harris
It doesn't feel safe. I've seen so many examples of it firsthand before and also get a lot of feedback work. Since joining omg, I introduced quarterly employee satisfaction surveys just to get a constant quarterly pulse on what's going on. And actually it's been. It's been really rewarding because the trend has gone up over the last year. So we're listening and you get really good feedback. It's not just quantitative, you know, one out of five. We also ask meaningful questions and get. Get really good feedback. And so that is one place that you can quite often capture where people don't feel they're being heard. And I often ask specific questions around that. I've sat on meetings before, like as an observer, and watched a manager sort of shoot down an idea or laugh because somebody suggested something or just said no because it didn't align with what they wanted to say. And you watch an individual shrink or they just go in on themselves and then everybody else in that environment also shrinks. And it's catching. It's psychological safety. And I think, unfortunately, that's a phrase that feels a bit buzzwordy now because it had, you know, these things kind of go in. In vogue and then they come again. And everyone was talking about psychological safety, but really it's about making sure that people feel like they can be heard, that their opinion matters. And actually by stifling that, you're missing out on loads of creativity and you're missing out on loads of innovation because people won't take risks. They won't want to come to you with ideas because they don't feel safe doing so. And it's the same with feedback. I always ask my team members for feedback from me. Is there any feedback you'd like to give me this month? Is there anything that I could be doing more for you? I always invite you it because it's important for me to know feedback is useful in both directions and that allows them to feel safe going, oh, it's okay actually to tell Sarah how I'm feeling today. And I feel that she's going to hear me and she's going to reflect on it.
- [26:57]
Savannah Brewer
This may seem kind of like simple question, but what is your response to someone when they give you feedback that you actually don't want to take on? Like, I heard this, that I went through a leadership program that taught feedback is neutral. And I totally agree. Feedback is neutral except for the meaning that we attach to it. And if we want to take it and we want to do something with it, like if someone told me that I was a cat, I would be like, you know, thank you for that feedback and I'm not going to wear that. That doesn't feel true for me. So when you have team members give you feedback that doesn't feel like it's actually the most useful for the business or for yourself, what is your response? Because I've found myself struggling in those situations before.
- [27:38]
Sarah Harris
I'm trying to think of a time that's happened. I mean, I actually received a bit of feedback from somebody the other day that I didn't quite resonate with me, but I just reflected on it and then followed up afterwards, told me that I was being defensive about something and I really didn't feel that I was being defensive at all. And it kind of irked me in the moment and partly because I was female and he was male and it felt patronizing because of what we were talking about. But so I paused on that and I just said to him, I don't feel like I'm being defensive, but obviously that's how it's coming across. And I sort of have said, you know, I just brought us back to the conversation. And then a couple of days later I sent him just a follow up on Slack to show that I'd reflected on the conversation and why I felt he was picking up on whatever he was picking up. On, I think it's. You don't have to own it, but I think you can acknowledge someone else's experience. I think it's okay. Oh, I'm really pleased that you've told me that's how you feel. I really wasn't aware that that was something I was doing or something that I've even noticed. I need to go away and think about it, if I'm honest. But I will, and I will come back to you with any reflections. I think it's that. Take it away. You don't have to respond in the moment like anything. Right, Right. Thank you. Let me think on that and I'll. I'll come back. That's something I'll need to reflect on.
- [28:53]
Savannah Brewer
It just comes back to not coming from a place of reactivity. You know, it's like. And that's where the, the lack of safety comes from is when people are reactive and shoot down an idea or like you said, get defensive and try to explain themselves out of something. Whereas if you can just like really hear and validate and be like, you know, I'll get back to you on that. I think that's a really great way of doing it.
- [29:19]
Cameron Herold
Hey, it's Cameron. I hope you're loving today's episode. Quick question for you. Does your company have a strong leadership training program in place to grow the skills of everyone who manages people? If you want to help yourself and your company grows, get everyone who manages people learning from my invest in your leaders online training program. There are 12 core leadership skills that I cover online and they're all going to really grow. CEOs pay me $78,000 a year to coach them one on one. And now you can all benefit for 1% of what they pay me. These are the same leadership skills that I created and certified everyone in at 1-800-got junk when I was there as COO. Go to investinyourleaders.com today and use promo code podcast10 before the end of the month to get 10% off each manager you sign up. Now back to the show.
- [30:15]
Sarah Harris
And having that pause moment. You know, actually a little bit of neuroscience if you want it. But that pause allows your brain to catch up. So you've got your threat detector part of your brain and then you've got your decision maker part of the brain. And your threat detecting part of the brain will always respond first. It comes in quicker. And your decision making part of your brain is always a microsecond before afterwards. So if you're not waiting for the decision Making part of the brain to catch up. You're just going to respond from reactivity. So take a beat. Always take a pause or a beat, especially if somebody's giving you feedback that's feeling uncomfortable.
- [30:49]
Savannah Brewer
Perfect. Thank you. I love hearing your. You know, the psychological background that you have is really, really amazing. And any facts or science, I mean, actually it would be like, yeah, we could kind of go this, this route. Well, how have you found your background with therapy and coaching and the certifications that you've done, how has that work helped you as a COO? Because there are so many different types of COs. They're so far ranging in terms of what they're doing and personalities. But I do find that the kind of. The average CO is often a little bit more operational and to them, a little more introverted. Behind the scenes, they're in a supporting role. And so sometimes the people skills may not be as strong. And so I would love to hear how have you found that type of work or investment into yourself? How has that really supported you, specifically as a coo?
- [31:43]
Sarah Harris
It's funny, you know, because I constantly get told that I'm not a typical coo, which. Which I quite like, actually. As something, it gives me a usp, I guess, sense, assuming it's being said in a complimentary way. I guess it's. Businesses are people, businesses are made up of people. And there's nothing more important than not just being able to understand people, but liking people. I've got a lot of time for people. I exercise empathy. I can look at a situation, I can look at a team dynamic, I can even look at something I'm pushing down. And maybe you've got people in the business that, especially when you're in a leadership position, can be really annoying and ask. Ask annoying questions and always feel like detractors and. But I. There's always something else going on. There's always maybe a nervousness or an insecurity or an uncertainty or a fear or something going on for that person. And as I said earlier, you know, most process problems aren't the process. There's a fear of conflict, there's a lack of accountability, there's weirdness in the team dynamic. There's. There's something emotional going on. And if you understand emotions and you understand what drives people, then it makes it much easier to solve those problems. And so actually, when I'm tackling problems in the business and I'm working with people and they're talking about all the things that are wrong, I know how to Ask the powerful questions. And that's part counseling, but also part coaching, avoiding, avoiding close questions, making sure I'm constantly asking what's making you feel frustrated with this process? How could it look better? Where has this been better for you? In other roles. Just constantly approaching the team with respect, with empathy and with curiosity. And those are such key attributes in any role, whether you're a therapist, a coach, or a COO or a CEO. And so I think it's helped me get teams on side and get into the sort of nitty gritty of a business and hopefully build really strong relationships with the CEO because they're also a human being and they might also have moments where they feel isolated or they feel overwhelmed or they feel insecure or they feel afraid of the conflict that they think they're about to walk into. And so they also need your empathy and your respect and your curiosity. Effy.
- [34:10]
Savannah Brewer
I think the respect and the curiosity really builds the safety, not just in terms of being able to bring feedback and things, but also just in terms of how people, people step into their job and trying things and getting creative and taking bold action. So this is one of the things that I picked up on some of the answers that you filled out before the podcast around helping teams become more autonomous and confident in their decision making. So what is your approach outside of just building respect and being curious, but really, if you're not the one doing the in the weeds work and you're just kind of supporting the team for them to go out and do things things, how do you help teams become more maybe just confident in leaning and trying things, not being afraid to fail? What is your approach to that?
- [34:55]
Sarah Harris
So, you know, there's a huge part of being a coach for them which, which I'll speak to. But it's, I guess in this environment you're also their COO and they need to feel safe. So what I typically try to do is not make the decision, but I will take the accountability. So I will invite an individual or a group of individuals to problem solve. I'll help, I'll facilitate the conversation. I'll add in some useful questions, give a little bit of perspective, what about this? But I try not to take the decision for them. They need to be bought into whatever's going to be impacting them. But that safety, that allowing them to feel safe, to take a risk, I will always offer my accountability. Go for it, Try it. It's on me. If it doesn't work, just give it a go. And I think when I spoke to you earlier and when I was doing my introduction, I was talking about the world of tech and where my, my leadership stripes and I learned about working iteratively and trying things and testing things and failing quickly and learning quickly. And I think that can be applied anywhere. And so one of my current directors always laughs at me because whenever he wants to try something, I say to him, well, let's just try it, let's try it. Let's call it a try, give it a month. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's on me, let's give it a go. And that gives them the sense of, okay, great, I might run with something. And you know what? Most of the time there's something really solid that comes out of it. And yes, it might not be perfect, but they've given it a go. And then they're far more likely to come back to you next time and ask to do something else. So there's that and I guess there's just general coaching in business and how to get things across the line. So I'm always encouraging them. People come to me with, I want to try this or I want to try that, or I think, think we could be doing this more. Great. Write me a business case. One page. Just tell me what's the problem that you're trying to solve, how you think you're going to solve it, what you think the return on investment is. Anything I need to give you in terms of investment, my side, that's all I need. And so again, it's getting them to think like a, like a business owner. Again, I get laughed at all the time because I sound like a broken down record. What problem are you trying to solve? And if you can't answer that, we're not pushing ahead. But if you're really clear on what the problem is, then we can look for a solution. But most people jump very quickly to trying to go to solution without really digging into the weeds of that problem. And sometimes the problem's much simpler than you think it is. And you don't need to build a bespoke platform for whatever it is. It might just be that two people in different departments aren't speaking to each other.
- [37:26]
Savannah Brewer
Yeah, getting to the root of the real issue. Yeah. And yeah, not making assumptions either. Like you said, like really getting curious and asking questions and all around. Which is why building cohesion and communication across team is so important, because those silos can be so, what's the word? Like detrimental to the company. And as you were speaking, I had this Memory of the owner that I worked with. His name's Cole. And he taught very early on just the I intend to because he got to a point where so many people were coming to him with problems and then he's kind of using his brain power to solve, solve for everybody. And he was like, look, I can't be doing this at this point anymore. You have to come to me with an I intend to. Here's the clear problem. I intend to do this. There's maybe two other options. Here are the three things I'm thinking about, but I intend to do this. What do you think? So if you really need another perspective, you at least already come to the owner. And this is something for someone that is wanting to be moved into COO role or you're already in there. It's so important to save the time. Whatever the CEO should not be doing so that they can focus on the highest leverage things is really your responsibility to take on. You're the, the yin to the yang. And being able to come with all that and then teaching your team, because if you're not teaching your team the same thing, you're not, you're eventually. This is something I've experienced also just the buildup of taking on so many people's problems and trying to solve for everybody. You just can't do it. So the, the clear problem coming with an I intend to teaching your team. That is really important. And the other thing I was going to mention is that when I joined the COO alliance, I came to Cole with, hey, there's this program. I don't know. You know, I'm new in the CEO position, but this is specifically made for COOs. You know, will you, will you buy me the program? And he agreed to do it as long as after every call I had or every video of a training I watched, I put together my notes of what I intended to do with it. It. And it was very early on that I watched one of the interviews on group interview trainings that Cameron did, and I was like, this is going to change everything for us. And there was a lot of initial resistance because what, like you're going to have multiple people on an interview? But it ended up being the one thing that was the domino for so many of our problems in our internal hiring. And we ran a recruiting company, so being able to interview the difference between 200 people a month with my recruiting team and a thousand with the same amount of people, huge, huge difference. But it all came from this. Hey, I intend to do this. What do you think? And so being able to really invest in your team and putting them into scenarios that they can lean in while also, you know, not going and just like completely screwing something up because they didn't have any form of being able to balance it off.
- [40:18]
Cameron Herold
Hey, it's Cameron Herold, your high energy leadership guru, here to pump you up on the Second Command podcast. If you get frustrated because your managers aren't leading like you want them to be, check out my game changing leadership course@investinyourleaders.com that's investinyourleaders.com for just 347 per leader. You get 30 years. My proven experience straight from taking 1,800-got junk from 2 million to 106 million as COO. And it's packed with 12 easy modules. Learn situational leadership coaching, delegation, conflict management and more all in under six hours@investinyourleaders.com with straight to the point videos, worksheets and real life scenarios, your team will master time management, be able to hire a players and get aligned with your vision. It's all backed by a 30 day money back guarantee and raved about by hundreds of CEOs and thousands of managers already learning from the content. Grab this now and watch your business soar.
- [41:18]
Sarah Harris
And what a wonderful way to get creativity in your business by encouraging other people to answer questions. Otherwise you're only ever solving problems and answering questions from one perspective. I think the trick really is you don't need to come in with all the answers. And I think I wish somebody had told me that sooner because actually the real value is creating the conditions for other people to emerge with answers to their own questions. And that might be the CEO that might be making the team feel safe. Safe to speak up. But yeah, I think that's beautiful. And a really good coaching technique from Cole because actually by getting you to write your intensity, he's also giving you accountability and making sure that you're really digesting what you're doing and that you're gonna take it on and use it. Love it.
- [42:03]
Savannah Brewer
Yeah, totally. One of the things that I would personally be really interested in hearing is those moments. These are one of my favorite things is when you can just you feel a shift or you're on a meeting and you see the team respond differently or you see someone speak up that wasn't speaking up before. Like those are the moments that I live for. I just, I love feeling the shifts. Can you give us a story or a moment in time with OMG or a different company where maybe there was One problem. But then there was this moment for you where you were like aha. Like this is what I've been working towards. This is the shift probably.
- [42:45]
Sarah Harris
I mean the progression in people at individual level I love. I think that's the coach in me. And I'm thinking about someone actually not at OMG but my previous business that I was at and a mid level manager got got promoted up into a director role and just didn't see herself as a leader. Had really bad imposter syndrome, was crying all the time when I was having one to ones with her and just was really struggling and you know I really put the time and work in and, and coached her through it and she really lent into that. Took a lot of accountability and, and, and she started to, to fly. And I remember sitting on a call watching her and I could see her coaching someone else on this call and making decisions and it was all just coming naturally to her. And the call ended and I remember sending her a message on Slack and I was like wow, I think you might have just asked as a leader. And it was just, it was only about six months later but there was just this lovely growth. I think I talked earlier about self actualization. She really put the time and energy into her own growth and it really paid off and being able to be part of that is lovely. It's why I do this work that's beautiful.
- [43:55]
Savannah Brewer
There's this question that I kind of actually got from ChatGPT but I was like this is actually a really good question. It said if operations were a nervous system because I was telling it a little bit about your background. If operations were a nervous system, what would be its emotional signals? But I think there is like, you know, you can come into a company and you can feel the pulse of the health or the, you know, a company that's not healthy and there's some things going on.
- [44:26]
Sarah Harris
What would you.
- [44:27]
Savannah Brewer
Some of those things to look for is the. Just the emotional health of a. A calm healthy business.
- [44:33]
Sarah Harris
So one of the first. There's probably a few. One of the first things that came to mind was a lack of engagement. You can usually see when a team is feeling flat. You could especially actually when you work remotely because you've got things like Slack and you can just notice change in the tone and how people are responding to things. Are they leaving emojis? Are they acknowledging, are they engaging with things that are being put out there? Just that that in. In all company meetings is the. Does it feel awkward? Is everyone a bit quiet and on Mute and just sort of looking dead into the lens. So there's certainly something about employee engagement. Are they engaging with the business the way they used to? That's you. If they're not, that's usually a sign that something's a bit broken. I mean in professional services I'd say quality of client work. Are your client satisfaction surveys dipping? Are you starting to see clients feeling like they're not getting the service they used to? Our clients churning. That's quite often a sign that motivation isn't there, that the performance isn't quite there. People being off, I guess, but that's when things have got really bad. And again, I don't want to be repetitive but I think it's people not taking accountability for things, people not leaning in, people not making decisions. It's a general sense of apathy in the business and quite often you'll get your CEO sort of dragging the team, kicking a screaming, trying to bring the energy and it's exhausting for a CEO to do that, really trying to rally the troops into feeling something. And actually the harder the CEO does that, possibly the more frustrating it gets for the rest of the team and the further away they sink. I think that's actually where the COO role comes in really handy because you're that lovely temperature gauge or a really good conduit between the CEO and the aspirational and the living up here in, in this world and then the reality of being somebody who's working in the business and trying to find that balance.
- [46:29]
Savannah Brewer
Just to tie up here. We've got a couple minutes left. There's a couple questions that I really enjoy asking and one is golden nuggets monumental change for me. I love implementing end of days where there's not end of days. It's like the one saying that if I can get visibility into someone's day at the end and how they're feeling, it's a temp check every day on how that person's doing on my, my team and it makes such a big difference. Are there any tools or tactics, processes, anything that you do for yourself or for your team that you just think is an absolute must have for most companies or to create a healthy culture.
- [47:06]
Sarah Harris
So I'm going to repeat what I said earlier because I think it's really important. Get curious about what's not being said. Really listen to the non verbal in the business business, the what people are saying, whether it's the CEO, whether it's your peers, leadership team or people within the company. Quite often what they're saying is actually not what they're saying. So really listen to those, really listen out and look out for those non verbal cues. Trust your instinct and lean into those what's not being said. So I think that's probably something that I would recommend as a tip that I don't think everyone always does. And I think just something perhaps a little bit more tangible than that just in terms of prioritization. I had an epiphany a few years ago that I was never going to get to the end of my to do list. Yeah, every day, every week I did this to do list and I'd be like frantic and I just had this literally this aha moment that there'll never not be a to do list and that's okay. And that sort of gave me a sense of calm. And what I've done ever since that day is I, I've woken up in the morning and I've looked at my to do list and I've reprioritized it for that day and just got through what I can. And sometimes some of those things that are in your priority priority list for months, sometimes they just disappear off the priority list because you left it so long. And it's never making it the top to the, it's never making its way to the top of the priority list. Maybe it's not that important a thing, but that's just my other little thing and I, I feed that onto people all the time. You should say to me, I can't get through my to do list. Stop trying to. You don't need to get to the end of your to do list. You just need to hit the top two things on it every day.
- [48:42]
Savannah Brewer
Oh, that's so good. That's really good. I can't remember where I got this from, but the idea of just like brain dumping every single day, everything, even if I already had it in my asana, I did this every day. I still do it. I'll put down everything that I have to do and then instead of thinking about urgent, important for me, somehow that doesn't translate in my brain well. But consequently consequence works really well for me. If I don't get this done, what's the consequence of it? Because there are some tasks that the consequence is way bigger, but I do not want to do it. But it should be my number one thing because if it doesn't happen, the fallout really impacts a lot of people. And then there's other things that like, you know, it may feel important, it may feel kind of urgent. For me, but it's not really going to have a whole lot of consequence if I don't get it done. But, yeah, if I just, like, pick those top things and you're right, some things will just never, ever get done. We create a lot of things for ourselves, don't we? Last question here. Love to tie up with. What are you excited about? What are you excited about in the next six months, both personally and professionally?
- [49:45]
Sarah Harris
So, professionally, you know, as I said, I've been with OMG now for just over a year. I plan to be with them until the end of this year at least. And we've just started getting. So I've been putting the wheels in motion for a number of initiatives. One around AI, one around how, how we package our work and price it up, one around how we service clients. There's a whole series of things going on and then it's taken a lot of time and energy just to get these things moving and get the data. And it's all really laborious stuff and I think we've all felt a bit done with it, but we're suddenly at that point where they're all about to start dovetailing and launching. And I think this next six months are going to be really exciting and we're going to see a really big shift. Shift in the business. So it's been a long time coming. We've had all these different things going, but I think the impact is going to be huge. So, yeah, I'm really excited about that and some of the initiatives and I can tell that the team are buzzing about it, which is also nice. So professionally it's that. And personally, I'm currently building a loft extension on my house just over there. And I went up there today and there are now windows in there and my bathtub has been put in situ. And so in about six weeks, I'm going to have this beautiful room that I have designed from scratch. That will be my new bedroom. And I cannot wait. So that's what I'm excited about. Personally, I feel like I'll never leave the house again.
- [51:11]
Savannah Brewer
I love that for you. That sounds very dreamy. I also. What also is really dreamy is when people from the UK use the word buzzing. I love that I had this client at Closer who had just a really, really thick accent and every day in Voxer, because we were building sales companies, he'd come in there and if I'm trying to remember his name, I can't remember his name, but he'd come in there and he'd be like, guys, I'm absolutely buzzing today. I'm just buzzing. The sales team is buzzing and I just remember like that word forever is ingrained. So thank you bringing back that memory. So many days that that man brought brought me joy with his amazing energy and accent.
- [51:53]
Sarah Harris
Right. I hope he's listening to this and recognizing himself in that.
- [51:57]
Savannah Brewer
I hope so too. Yeah, I need to figure out what. Oh, Ashley, maybe. I don't know. I have to figure this out after instead of the podcast. This has been absolutely amazing, Sarah. Thank you so much. If anyone wants to reach out to you or connect, follow you, where's the best place to do that?
- [52:12]
Sarah Harris
Come and find me on LinkedIn.
- [52:14]
Savannah Brewer
Perfect. Okay. Well, I really appreciate your time. This was amazing and I'm excited for your room and all of the amazing changes that are coming with the companies that you're working with. Thanks so much.
- [52:25]
Sarah Harris
Thank you. Thanks so much.
- [52:29]
Savannah Brewer
You've been listening to Second In Command, brought to you by COO alliance founder, Cameron Herold. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practices from industry leading COOs, visit COOAlliance.com.