Cameron Herold, founder of The COO Alliance, on vision, execution, and growth

About Cameron Herold

Cameron is the founder of the COO Alliance and The Second in Command Podcast. His work has earned him a reputation as the "CEO Whisperer" because while he's helped hundreds of companies scale in prior consulting and coaching, he also has the unusual distinction of having scaled multiple companies to $100mm in revenue as their Chief Operating Officer. So when we talk about bridging the strategy-execution gap that occurs on this journey, he's been there and done that more than once. As you might expect, he's spoken on the topics of leadership and growth all over the world—26 countries in total—and is the top-rated lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Masters Program, EO, and MIT.

Concepts

Vision & Execution

  • Vivid Vision is Cameron’s tool that’s proven out is in hundreds of companies

    • CEO’s use it align teams

    • It takes the idea of a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) and focuses it through the lens of a detailed and practical 3-year vision

  • It aligns more than just employees - it connects you to the press, vendors and service providers; It helps with recruiting

  • The process pulls together things that are proven from high-performance athletes and high-growth companies like Starbucks.

  • Revise your vision as you go to reflect and celebrate progress

  • The CEO’s job is to make the vision clear so the leadership team can put a plan in place to make it come true, and the employees can work off of those plans and the vision

  • The CEO and COO dynamic: the CEO cheerleads the vision and drives toward it while the the COO focuses on making every part of it come true.

  • Teams should also create their own Vivid Vision to hone in their focus and help them see more meaning in their work beyond projects and a deadlines.

Time horizons

  • Leaning out 3 years into the future gives you time to innovate and iterate, while keeping a healthy sense of urgency

  • Going for the 10 year horizon can put things so far out they seem too abstract

Growth

  • Cameron noticed big changes/sticking points in 3s:

    • Operations: when going from one to three employees, 10 to 30 employees, 100 to 300 employees, etc.

    • Revenue: when going from $100K to $300K, $1mm to $3mm, etc.

  • CEO’s and COO’s should delegate and automate 70-80% of things on your plate to focus growing people, culture, and employee engagement.

  • CEOs and COOs need to constantly grow your peoples’ skills and confidence in order to enable them and the business to scale

  • Think in terms of ladders when it comes to people development; Think of the skill ladder AND the confidence ladder

  • Make sure you are building up continual praise for things being done well in order to build confidence as well as skills

  • Put your core values in the spotlight: Hire to them, ensure your employees live them, talk about them, and reinforce them

Links

Other Sessions

  • TK Kader, Founder and CEO of Unstoppable, ToutApp (A16z), SVP Strategy at Marketo, Adobe;

  • Jason McCann, CEO of Vari

  • Will Bunker, Co-founder OneAndOnly (now Match.com), VChatter, President; GrowthX co-founder; investor in 160+ tech companies, 5 exits

  • Arjun Dev Aurora, Founder and CEO Retargeter; Founder, Valence; Nike, Investment Committee

    See the full list here.

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