The biz of Biz Ops — do you have what it takes?
The biz of Biz Ops — do you have what it takes?
Every modern company drums up the fact it is as good as its people — and they have the best people. It is a bit of a cliché. You ask someone from McKinsey, “why do you work there?” — “the people”; you ask someone from Virgin, “why do you work there?” — “the people”; you ask someone from a random start up you have not heard of, “why do you work here?”… mmm “the people?” Yes, it is always the people. But different companies, have different skill needs, and different cultures. They need different good people.
Therefore, companies of all sizes spend a lot of time in sifting through people in order to hire. Because it is not enough to be smart, or skilled, or a “team player.” You have to be the right “fit.” Someone might be sharp but underwhelmed in their responsibilities, and can start causing issues; someone else might be out of his or her depth in the first 6 months but with enough support could learn and excel in the long run. “Good people” means different things to different organizations, and bosses.
What should you look for your Strategy / Biz Ops function?
After working across Strategy / Biz Ops functions in multiple organizations, and as an advisor, I have seen that to be useful, a Strategy / Biz Ops team needs to be a highly functional team. The nature of the work, as I discussed earlier, is cross-functional, complex, diverse, and evolves with time. People need to trust each other, respect each other, and bring out the best in each other.
My cheat sheet for hiring: it involves the following candidate qualities, across all levels, in no particular order:
team players — are they a team player? Or do they hoard credit? Will they help out on a weekend if their team is struggling with a deadline?
influence w/o authority — can they convince a senior member of a team in the importance of an issue? Can they attract people and resources to their work?
analytical — can they think critically? Can they work with data? Can they come to useful insights from seemingly unrelated topics? How good is their systems thinking?
curious — will they dig deep into an issue they don’t fully understand? Will they revisit topics as conditions change? What do they read in their spare time?
adaptable — how do they make decisions? How do they handle complexity and ambiguity? How often do they evolve their thinking, and why?
The weight of each of these qualities will change depending on role, complimentary skills in the team, and level.
Assembling your Justice League of Biz Ops team members.. is the fun and easy part. Getting them to work together, and across the organization in a highly functional way will be the kicker. They would need:
To trust each other, and have the trust of cross functional team members.
To be open to discussing, and escalating the real issues, all with the intent to make projects and organization better.
To get buy in and commitment from cross functional leaders, and commit to a cause themselves.
To hold themselves and others accountable.
To define what results will be achieved — and deliver through others.
And the leader of the team needs to drive this, and facilitate this. Noone else can — even if they want to. Come to think of it, being a leader of a Strategy / Biz Ops functions is difficult. Don’t do it. But then again… maybe do ;)
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I hope you enjoyed this post in the biz of Biz Ops series. This series has grown massively over the past couple of months and the feedback has been overwhelming. Thank you for the suppoer! If you have any questions or comments, you can ping me on LinkedIn.