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A New Role
For the past 3 months, I've been Chief Operating Officer for Trust & Leadership, a professional development company whose mission it is to equip professionals with tools to balance high achievement with wellbeing.
With my background in coaching, global tech, innovation, marketing, business coaching and managing teams, I was excited to take on a new role where the company mission was so compelling and aligned with my own journey.
Emotions. Yes!
I found myself scared, feeling stretched and also terribly excited for this new chapter and I also discovered — I needed help!
As Chief Operating Officer, my role is to partner with the CEO to ensure operations runs smoothly according to the mission & vision. I am responsible for our processes (the thing that helps companies scale & run smoothly) but also for financial projections, budget development, executing the business strategy and day-today business and operational functions. I felt the scope was tremendous.
One of my challenges was figuring out how to implement processes and procedures at scale. Not a sexy topic but vastly important for running a business. One of my strengths is thinking long term and not necessarily detailed process-wise, but here I found myself deep in processes.
What I learned
What I found was that my personality profile didn't quite fully fit the job profile. It helps if the COO is attentive to details, tactical in nature and adheres to rules like a perfectionist. If you know me you know I don't tend to follow rules but I found myself responsible for setting rules/procedures and setting the example for following them!
Should I have turned down the role? Should that role never have been offered to me? What do you do if you find yourself in a situation where you don't 100% fit?
Concentrate on being 100% committed. Don't worry about being a 100% fit
The fact that I wasn't a 100% fit for the job was part of the excitement and part of the learning curve that enticed me.
When I met with my coach, we talked about my strengths and my challenges. Attention to detail was a challenge & a past skill I thought I grew out of some time ago. However, part of my 90 day plan was to create a strategic plan (a natural strength for me) of where we needed to be operationally and then start to implement getting there.
While details can drain me, problem solving excites me. So for process implementation (a weakness for me), I leaned into problem solving & I got help from someone with detail and perfectionist tendencies. I leaned into my commerce values to sort out the processes we needed most with priority to those that would help the company be successful then I began bench testing those processes.
Use your talents!
We each have skills and talents. I discovered a way to use mine to help me in areas where I am not naturally inclined, i.e. perfectionism & detail. My values of problem solving, financial stability and quality, have helped me lean into details and perfectionism to build our processes & I enlisted help from someone who has strengths I lack! Win-win!
Finding and knowing your values can help you show up in ways you never thought possible.
Like I did in my first 90 days. Don't know your talents, take an assessment. Ask me about the Hogan assessment and how this one can help you find your values, your motivators and the way you like to reward and be rewarded. The Hogan assessment is one we use in TLC with our seasoned leaders but anyone can benefit from it!
Ask for help!
When you have more to do than you have possibility to complete, you learn not to do yourself but to rely on your team. Don't have a team? What do you have? Who do you know? What friends, acquaintances or resources can you approach?
We forget to ask for what we need. Self-reliance is great but being open to help and asking for help will get you further and you'll develop some lasting friendships as well.
Bottom Line: We all have help around us. Some help is free, other help is a paid service. Both are valuable.
Give yourself (and others) grace
We high achievers often set a high bar that we nor anyone else can reach. It's great to have goals and even lofty goals but remember to give yourself grace and be kind to the golden goose - YOU!
In my first 90 days I took two holidays which were pre-planned. One was 3 weeks in Europe and the other was my two week yearly retreat. Of my first 90 days I took 30 days off. I did not work much if at all during those times. That meant I went into those holiday periods with the expectation that I wouldn't do much of any work.
When I returned I was fresh and got so much done when I returned. You can't always work. Periods of relaxation, rest, and time away makes you far more productive than simply slogging through work. Learn to give yourself the grace to rest.
Learn to give others grace too.
When I'm on fire (rested, rejuvinated and thinking clearly) I can leave people in my wake. Because I am so strategic, I can think 5 steps ahead while someone is still on step 1. So I have to remind myself to communicate to a level where others will understand me to bring them along to step 5 or even slow myself down so I can hear their detailed step 1 that might save me 4 steps.
Bottom line: Learn to give yourself and others grace.
Dr. Lizette Warner, PCC
With over 20 years of executive leadership experience, including as CTO and COO. Lizette specializes in using a neuroscience-backed methodology for balancing achievement & well-being.
Lizette’s coaching approach is practical, probing, and pragmatically calm. Although she coaches much less now, when she does, she creates a space where insights emerge even from unstructured beginnings.
Dr. Warner is the Founder of the Business Building Academy your go to source for learning, to build and grow your business. See if you qualify.
Here are 3 more ways you can drastically increase your impact:
1. Read my book, now as my special gift to you and you’ll be first on the list for my next book, that'll keep you motivated, inspired and fed.
2. Join a professional development cohort, and get the skills, habits and traits of other top performers. Students love the personal touches, the practicing of skills in a safe space and the community of supportive peers where you can talk openly while growing professionally in a safe space. Check out the programs.
3. Download your Business Essentials Checklist & get everything you need to build or scale your business the right way.
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