<aside> <img src="/icons/new-alert_purple.svg" alt="/icons/new-alert_purple.svg" width="40px" /> COO's main responsibility is to become an extension of their CEO. This means learning how to think like them, make decisions like them, and prioritize for them. In terms of the startup, your brain essentially becomes a clone of your CEO's.
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The more successful you CEO are, the more they're going to be pinged. Everyone is going to want something from them, and that means everyone wants something from you as the COO. And, it can be difficult to discern what is actually urgent and important, and what is not. It is your job, therefore, to help your CEO filter the signal from the noise.
These requests tend to fall into these buckets:
Like many founders, CEO’s have huge undertakings and goals — and because it's impossible for one human to do it all on their own, your CEO hired you, their COO (hello 👋)
Within a few months of joining your CEO, you will realize you will be pulled in a million different directions.
There will be many priorities that fell on your CEO's plate that will fall on yours. Your day-to-day as an early COO meant juggling everything from their Inbox, to becoming the catch-all for all internal questions related to Operations, HR, and People, to scheduling in a full calendar.
<aside> <img src="/icons/new-alert_purple.svg" alt="/icons/new-alert_purple.svg" width="40px" /> Friendly reminder: you don't owe responses to people you don't know.
Your time is no longer your own when you're working. Your time is your CEO’s time. That means every second you spend with someone who is wasting your time, you're actually wasting your CEO’s time.
Think of that when it comes to prioritization.
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Do not learn how to REACT. Learn how to RESPOND
-Buddha
The key difference between reacting and responding is simple:
Reacting means you're attending to the thing that is loudest.
You're not giving it much thought beyond the hysterical voice in your head screaming at you that you're going to die if you don't take care of it right then and there. You go in order of whichever voice shrieks the loudest in your mind.
Responding means you insert a mindful pause in your actions.
Pausing isn't doing nothing. You're pausing. That's doing something. But you're creating the space you need in order to calmly figure out whether it's actually an urgent priority, or if your amygdala is just screaming at you.
Once you've given it some thought, you can choose to respond by either:
If you take care of it right away, it's because you gave it some thought and realized it is, in fact, urgent and important.
If you end up placing it on the back burner, it's because after some thought, you realized it's not urgent at all.
If you ask someone else to do it, it's because it's not the best use of your time to do it (or you're not the best person to do it), but there's someone else whose time it will be well worth. You may ask your EA to help with scheduling, for example, instead of you doing it yourself.
If you don't do it, it's because it isn't important.
If you know the person who made the ask and rang the bell of urgency, make sure to close the loop with them so you don't leave them hanging and potentially sour the relationship.
Your ultimate goal is to enable your CEO to feel like Superhuman.
It might depend on your CEO's definition of "Superhuman," you are there to help them achieve their goals.
As a COO, your CEO’s goals are your goals.
As a COO, it is important for you to understand the tasks that the drain your CEOs energy - the minutiae task of day to day operations, admin tasks, and anything that doesn’t involve creation. Armed with this knowledge, it is your responsibility to take those tasks off their plate and outsource them to your EA (if you have one), outsource to other team members who are better at them and will enjoy it more, or handle it yourself.
If you are unsure where to start with priorities, align yourself with your CEO. And ask them
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