Every 5 years or so, we see new roles emerging inside of tech organisations. This happened in software development with the devops movement, it happened in design with the rise of UX, and we’re now seeing it in operations with the rise of the Chief of Staff role.
To be clear, the Chief of Staff job is not new. It’s a role that you can commonly find in military and political environments (I mostly learned about it by watching Veep). But, what’s new is the growing popularity of the role in the startup world. A quick LinkedIn search shows that more than 20,000 companies with 50 or fewer employees have a Chief of Staff – a clear sign that this position is making a difference even at an early stage.
But, what do they do exactly?
Instead of making things up, we decided to ask 4 different Chief of Staffs to share their experiences.
A role born from growing pains
While you will find some interesting differences between each company, what was common was the trigger that pushed each organisation to introduce the Chief of Staff role: rapid scale.
The faster you grow, the harder it becomes to maintain your focus. You might have brought in VPs to lead the different functions, but they might be already overwhelmed by the amount of work required to build their team. So, rather than adding more pressure on the team, an elegant option is to bring in someone that can ensure seamless collaboration between all departments while staying really close to the CEO.
This is what the Chief of Staff can do for these teams, and this explains why this role is getting more and more popular in fast-growing companies.
Cadence and alignment
I invite you to read all 4 interviews as you’ll find some great advice and lessons learned from each company. But one thing that is clear is the importance of cadence across the board:
- Mutinex has weekly town halls
- Sitemate uses daily standups across their teams
- Lawpath has all hands every Friday to adjust the sense of urgency
- Expert360 has weekly tactical meetings to adjust execution
Having a clear strategy isn’t enough to keep everyone aligned. Tracking progress on said strategy, and adjusting your effort accordingly is what must be done if you want a great execution.
What’s next
Read the post Atomic Habits for results-driven teams to find tactics that can help you make tracking results a natural part of your weekly cycle.
I hope you’ll enjoy the interviews, and don’t forget to try Tability if you’re looking to drive engagement with team goals and increase transparency.
.png)
.jpg)
