It's A specialist's world and I'm just living in it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be an operator. More specifically, what it means to be a generalist.

For anyone who has else held a role with the word “operations” in the title (Operations & Strategy, Product Ops, Business Ops, Revenue Ops, Chief Operating Officer), you probably know what it feels like to be pegged as the Jane or Jack, of All Trades, the Fixer or the Opportunistic Hire.

I have met many operational leaders in my career and there is a shared sentiment among us all: Nine times out of ten, we love the versatility and responsibility that comes with this type of role. But frustration creeps in when we aren’t properly leveraged because our scope and ownership isn’t well defined or understood.

If that is you, or you’re just trying to understand what a role in operations actually means, keep on reading. (I’d also suggest picking up a copy of “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World” by David Epstein).

I’ve tried to unpick how to articulate the value of Operations within an organization, how to bring structure to a role that is inherently nebulous and, biased as I may be, why I think it’s one of the best leadership roles to have … if built correctly.

Note: I am looking at “Operations” primarily through the lens of technology start-up and scale-ups. I co-founded a mobility & travel company in a prior life, so while I deeply understand the world of ‘asset heavy’ operations, for the purpose of this article, I am referring to ops in technology companies. Operations in retail, hospitality, DTC & supply chain businesses is an entirely different beast (but, as someone who operated a long-distance transportation start-up for nearly 4 years and quite literally built a bus with her bare hands, I’m happy to chat about why that kind of ‘ops’ really is a different skill set).

SME vs. Generalists: We are not only one thing

One habit that many of us - myself included - have been trained to do is to label.

We are conditioned to put everything into a box in order to give it meaning, perspective and value. Doing this allows us to stack-rank the importance of any given thing or person in our lives. This works the same in business:

• Are you a marketer? If so, are you a digital, brand or social media specialist?

• Do you have an accounting and finance background? If yes, is your swim lane FP&A, corp dev, M&A, tax?

• Are you an engineer? Great, what coding language(s) do you know?

It makes sense. As the world becomes increasingly complex (the wildfire adoption of AI is a perfect example), specializing allows us to deliver clear ROI, expertise can help us spot clever arbitrage opportunities, and, pessimistic as it may sound, it can also reduce our risk of redundancy.

However, despite what a label might suggest, nobody is only one thing.

To be an SME (subject matter expert) doesn’t mean you know absolutely everything about a given topic: it means you have been educated or have built expertise in a specific skill set and you likely thrive in environments where your value is highly correlated to your depth of knowledge.

To be a generalist doesn’t mean that you are omnicompetent: it is an indication that you know a little bit about a lot and flourish in environments that necessitate a level of constant altitude calibration across people, processes and systems.

SMEs are attuned to the intricacies and nuances of a space; Generalists understand the geography.

The C-Suite & Operations: A Business, and its Vital System

CEOs are typically the visionaries: they fly above the forest and ensure the compass of the plane is always set towards the company’s North Star. A great CEO is also skilled at attracting high-caliber talent, building world-class teams and organizing the financial and functional resources needed to run the business.

The other members of the leadership team - usually some combination of Product/Tech, People, Sales/Marketing, Finance/Compliance/Legal - are responsible for adjusting the tack of their respective departments towards that North Star. These responsibilities trickle down throughout their teams and typically take shape in the form of specialized roles and sub-areas. What’s more, the sub-areas within Sales, Finance, HR, Product and Tech units are well-trodden structures that have specific and proven organizational models as a company scale.

(You will notice, I haven’t mentioned Operations yet.)

So what happens as companies scale?

While some CEOs are great operational leaders (I have had the privilege of working with several), as a business grows, the CEO becomes more focused on driving the external vision than involved in the daily rituals of running the business. Sometimes this happens early in the life of a business; sometimes it's later, depending on the skill set of the CEO. But it always happens.

As a result, a void can emerge between the CEO and the rest of the executive team or C-suite. This is where a COO/head of Business Operations/Chief of Staff becomes hugely valuable.

And because I love a good analogy, think of it this way: Organizations are living organisms that require a strong and adaptable immune system to survive.

A good ops leader is an extension of the broader function or executive they support. A great ops leader is the SME of a business’ vital system: they understand what keeps it alive, what it needs to thrive and what its major threats are to survival. Most importantly, they are able to quickly adjust to circumstances that will either kill or keep a business alive.

First Deployed Chameleon: the value of versatility

My old co-founder once told me he thought my superpower was being a “first deployed chameleon.”

If I unpack this riddle, I see a person who can:

• Operate in high uncertainty environments (eg. different stages of a business) of varying climates (eg. different departments of a business)

• Take stock of the current landscape (eg. people, processes, systems)

• Devise a blueprint that either improves or optimizes the course on which the CEO has set the North Star

• Effectively communicate the plan and mobilize cross-functional teams towards that vision

The specialism of Operations is versatility. We are experts at being generalists.

If we are doing our jobs well, our value is often nebulous. The challenge, and frustration, comes from how others choose to label that value: Process optimizer, system fixer, owner of special/strategic projects, sparring partner…. None of these are wrong but they are qualitative outputs (eg. hard-to-measure ROI) that fall short of truly capturing our responsibilities or influence.

The key to success for someone who chooses an operations path is finding environments, teams and leaders where the need for a multifaceted, technicoloured Swiss Army knife doesn’t require an explanation or a sell. You will only be effective if the rest of the organization knows what you are responsible for and how to leverage you.

In my experience, it takes longer to find those opportunities, but when you do, they are, by far and above, the most rewarding.