Holding the line: clarity, alignment and momentum in a world that doesn’t switch off

The better a COO does the job, the less visible it becomes. When clarity, alignment and momentum are in place, the organisation simply feels like it is running. When they are not, it tends to land in one place: with you.

In June, building on our Operating for 2035 discussion, Baringa convened our COO Network for breakfast at our Victoria offices. The open conversation was designed to be about how COOs are navigating priorities that all feel urgent, leading delivery outside their direct control, and the quieter challenge of sustaining momentum, personally as well as organisationally. Much of the role is consistently turning complexity into clarity, bridging the Board directives with the day to day operation. One COO perfectly captured the mood:

"We are in a constant state of permanent crisis."

Clarity, when everything feels urgent

Asked what they had tackled that week that in hindsight they shouldn’t have, many admitted to parachuting in: leaning in too far, picking up and solving problems that should have been left to teams and others to solve. Firefighting feels productive because it is visible, but the room questioned whether it is valuable, given the opportunity cost of not focusing on strategic priorities. In throwing themselves into the fixing, COOs stop providing the clarity that lets every team deliver, and fail to create white space, thinking time to look and plan ahead.

"The role of the COO is to create, and to hold, clarity."

The room then discussed a reframing of this question: what are the things that you, and only you, can do? Underneath the meddling in day to day affairs sat a behavioural driver the group named: FOBO, the Fear Of Becoming Obsolete. Staying in the busy work rather than directing the work to avoid being disconnected or maybe just a habit of always being the organisation’s chief fixer officer. Yet the COO’s real value is not heroics; it is being the connector, aligning the heart of the business through leading and coaching rather than fixing.

As one COO put it, the job is not to be the fixer but the killer, with the intentionality to stop things quickly that are distracting or not aligned to the organisation’s purpose and strategy. The modern COO needs to be a trader of risk and judgement, balancing the Board and the CEO's desire for speed with organisational control by creating the guardrails that enable innovation, experimentation and to pursue opportunities safely at scale.

"Just because you can doesn’t mean you should."

Alignment, without control

Most COOs are accountable for outcomes that depend on people, platforms and partners they often do not directly control. When alignment breaks it is rarely a surprise; it fractures around priorities, ownership or decision making. The room was candid that “communication” is too often a proxy for alignment that does not exist, and that a good relationship is not the same as genuine alignment.

"One of the COO's most overlooked responsibilities is being a distraction sponge-filtering signals from noise, shielding teams from unnecessary disruption and creating the space for others to execute at pace."

A good example of this in action was to build an extension of the executive team: a group of specialists who owned challenges collectively, translated strategy into action and freed the COO to focus on more strategic priorities.

This led to views on the Board and whether they introduce risk through the changing news headlines they read daily paired with a lack of the skills to understand how to implement; the sharper provocation was that on the topic of AI where the Board may not carry the value it once did. Part of the alignment task, the room concluded, is to educate the Board.

Momentum, when priorities keep shifting

Momentum now sits at the intersection of transformation and running the business, with the Board often wanting visible progress on both at once. Momentum that relies on individuals is fragile, and activity is easily mistaken for movement. The group recalled a lesson from our COO to CEO session earlier in the year: momentum came not from the COO’s own heroics but from a clear, endlessly repeated vision and an executive team trusted to carry it.

"The COO is the place where uncertainty gets held, until it becomes clarity."

The Baringa viewpoint, and a summary for the road

What should COOs stop doing to create time for strategy? No one is failing to try; people are simply doing too much. The work is to create clarity so others can succeed, keep priorities accessible, and protect the unique voice of the business, using AI where it adds value but never at the cost of the heart of the organisation. Four shifts capture it:

• Don’t be driven by FOBO. The fear of becoming obsolete drives much of the over involvement COOs recognise in themselves. Embrace it instead: your value is in the ripple you leave, not in being indispensable to every decision.
• Manage the Exec teams FOMO. A fear of missing out, on AI specifically, erodes the clarity of the strategy. Absorb that pressure, educate the Board, and hold the line on long term priorities when short term noise would pull the business off course.
• Create white space by doing only what you can do. The person who controls the white space is you. Step back from the immediacy, talk the team through a process rather than fixing it yourself, and protect room for deep thinking.
• Build an “A team” support system around you. A COO cannot be the umbrella for the whole organisation alone. A team of specialists owning and fixing problems together, frees the COO to lead. This is where resilience really lives: in the support around you, organisationally and personally, not in pushing through alone.

To continue this conversation, or to join the network, contact us.