The Demise of the COOs

The Demise of the COOs 

Traditionally the key leadership positions for organizations has been modeled between a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and COO (Chief Operating Officer) function. In a traditional setup COOs is a hands on leader who oversees all operational and administration functions, builds robust operation controls for operations and internal functions & responsible for all programs. Well you must be thinking if COOs are doing all this, what are the CEOs doing 😏

Traditional CEOs were organization heads with total control on the organization and responsible to make all key decision for the organization. The CEOs also acted as a main point of contact for any communication, decision or review by the board (of directors). CEOs were also expected to the public face for the company for any PR (Press) or announcements.

If you look closely on the dimension of engagement between the CEO and the COO, it is designed to be a bureaucratic engagement. The CEOs made decisions which were supposed to be proved right & successful by the COOs. Most of the time COOs proved to be the scapegoats for the CEOs for any decisions going wrong, it always turned out to be the execution of the decision rather than the decision.  

As the industry evolved and workplace philosophies like open environment, flat organizational structures, transparency, ownership became organizational realities, the dimension of CEO and COO function  changed as well. Not only boards tuned their expectations with CEOs, but also the new generation CEOs aspired and desired to have deeper organizational insights, having more controls at their end to drive-measure organizational efficiencies and show larger accountability quotient. One of the primary reasons for  the shift was also because most of the COOs as part of succession became CEOs, but never went and hired a COO😉 . The COOs always perceived themselves as "CEO in waiting". Also the board always saw them in the same way, which made the CEOs fairly insecure a lot of times. So the new CEOs started owning the decisions and its results and also slowly diminished the need of COOs. 

New generation CEOs take their decision and own them, they are the new operational leaders for all external and internal functions. COO role is more and more getting merged with CEO role and we are seeing less and less of COOs. While some big organizations still hold COO positions in their leadership as legacy, the phenomena is more picking up across all industries and very common now with new organizations where the CEO is the new COO.   

Few Facts

Amazon never ever had one COO. Jeff Bezos holds the CEO position for the company and his second layer in the organization are business CEOs and Sr Vice Presidents for different functions.

Kevin Tuner was the first and the last COO Microsoft ever had. He led the COO function for Microsoft for 11 years, 2005-2016. Satya Nadella, CEO for Microsoft manages all operational function within his portfolio. 

Thinking Cap ?

While i don't have an opinion yet to have a COO or not, the bigger takeaway for me is a plus for a non-bureaucratic responsibility matrix and flattened organizations. Leaders today are brave as never before,  own their decision and want to take more responsibility, so why should not organizations have their CEOs be the new COOs as well !

Whats in your Thinking Cap on this topic, do share / comment ?