A start-up entrepreneur fulfills many roles, including that of operations manager. The question is, when would be the best time for acquiring the services of a competent operations director?
Role of ODAs with most things in life, this won’t be a one-size-fits-all answer because frankly it just doesn't fit the same or each company. Perhaps the best place to start with this particular question is, what does the operations director do? I would say this would be the right hand to the person sitting at the top, typically called the CEO. An operations director could also be called the COO, operations manager, general manager and more. When I think of ops I think of someone being concerned with the day-to-day runnings and pretty much aking the “vision/direction” from the CEO and making it a reality.TimingWhen do you need this type of role fulfilled? Well, pretty much from day one. However, this can and is typically merged with the CEO initially. If we take a step back and think about the “CEO”, this is mostly the person who came up with the idea and started the business. In the beginning, they are “jack of all trades” so to speak. They are the receptionist, strategist, technologist, operational, recruitment, human resources, finance, dealmaker and more. As you progress with your idea, the capacity to hold all these roles becomes impossible and the roles will be taken up by others at different stages. Ofen this happens when the right person is found. So what I mean is, rather than starttingy identiying the role that is needed to be filled - t this early start - identiy the people you want to work with and who are passionate about your idea and then figue out which roles to divide among yourselves. There will be more than enough time later to start identifying roles to be fulfilled a then going about selecting people based on the role needed. Moment of truth my experience one of the defining moments in realizing you are in desperate need of an operations director is when there is constant last-minute rushing to complete deadlines, a tendency of missing deadlines, miscommunication between staff, misalignment of strategy with execution, o name a few. Let’s face it, while you need to know where you are going and when you need to arrive - you won’t get there (or at the right time) if you don’t have someone keeping a focus on this. Problems don’t wait to happen when you are watching for it, or opportunities for that mater. That all said and done, how can we turn this into something practical? Try reflecting on the questions below in helping you decide if you should hire an operations director:
Do you have enough time in the day to check in with all your stakeholders?
When last have you attended an update meeting and kept your attention on the meeting?
When last did you find yourself being torn between different responsibilities -operations and strategy?
Do all your employees really understand their priorities and how they fit in with the bigger picture?