In today’s global business environment, the COO role has never been more pivotal in shaping an organization’s ambitions. Across all industries and sectors, enterprises are striving to rewire and streamline the way they work. They want to build their capabilities in response to more frequent and substantial market shifts, market shocks, and market opportunities. In every aspect of this journey, the COO has a critical role in delivering the strategy now and building the operations for tomorrow.
Against this backdrop, McKinsey’s COO Excellence initiative has drawn on the firm’s deep legacy in operations and executive coaching to actively listen to our COO community across sectors and regions. By combining that expertise with the candid, peer-to-peer exchanges taking place in our leadership forums, we have distilled a clear picture of the current landscape. We have learned that despite operating in very different industries, today’s COOs are grappling with a remarkably similar set of challenges.
Challenges for COOs
The modern COO carries an immense dual mandate: delivering flawless execution with immediate results today, while simultaneously building the resilient, tech-enabled operations required for tomorrow. The success or failure of enterprise-wide transformations often rests squarely on their shoulders. In our article on how COOs deliver strategy, we set out six critical levers to unleash productivity.
Forging further to build resilient and tech-enabled operations for the future, we shine a light on the critical role COOs play to orchestrate the next layer of gen AI and gen-AI based agents, redefining how a company creates value.
And if proof were needed of the inextricable interplay between operational excellence maturity and an organization’s ability to capture value from investments in technology and AI, our article on putting AI to work sets out the fundamental elements of operational excellence—robust management and technical systems, a strong corporate purpose, and well-defined operating principles and behaviors—that play a pivotal role in separating leaders from laggards.
Given the sheer breadth of these responsibilities and the high stakes involved, the COO position can be an incredibly lonely role. While there is an enormous ecosystem of support and development for CEOs and other C-suite positions, COOs are frequently left to navigate this complex landscape without a dedicated sounding board.
And whether the aspiration is to be a career COO with deep domain expertise and extended responsibilities vertically or globally, or become a candidate for CEO—such as Bob Iger and Tim Cook—the question of how to push ahead does not always have one obvious answer.
COO Excellence: A dedicated space for immersive learning and peer exchange
To address the immense scope of these opportunities and the criticality of what’s involved in this new and highly pressurized COO mandate, this active program, including an established community and immersive learning experience, is tailored specifically to the most senior operations leaders.
As my colleague, Tony Gambell, said in a recent podcast, the most important thing for COOs to know is what matters in delivering the vision for the company and in executing their plan—and to have the ability to discern when the “what matters” changes.
The McKinsey COO Excellence initiative is centered on equipping today’s operations executives with strategic foresight, an unparalleled peer network, and the battle-tested insights needed to be the most successful COO they can be.
Masterclass sessions, for example, are exclusive, invitation-only experiences led by highly esteemed, distinguished faculty members who bring real-world COO perspectives and have a track record of navigating complex operational challenges and delivering meaningful impact for their organizations.
To explore McKinsey’s COO Excellence initiative and find out more about our exclusive learning experiences, visit: https://mckinseytalksoperations.com/lets-talk/