To be (a fractional COO), or not to be: that is the question

Trigger warning: I'm probably going to ruffle a few feathers by arguing the fractional COO model doesn’t work.

Fractional work is not a new concept. But, the Fractional COO model seems to have caught on like wildfire in the past several years and as a point of admission, I’m guilty of throwing gas on the proverbial flame. Before taking my current role, I tried to build a fractional business, supporting pre-seed to Series B tech companies. I’m sure there are many reasons I failed, but in hindsight I fundamentally don’t think you can productize something that isn’t a repeatable, plug-and-play role.

If look at a typical C-suite, there are industry-trodden ways (and associated KPIs) to scale every function - except Operations. This is true across Revenue and Commercial orgs, Finance, Marketing, Product and People.

Depending on the stage of the business, you will need certain roles at certain times, and the functions within each of those departments are well-known, researched and proven. The COO function is not.

Why?

Because COOs and the teams they manage are almost always a derivative of the unique needs of the company, the CEO and the rest of the C-suite. It’s a role that is usually promoted to or brought in to fill the remaining gaps in a business and leadership team.

As a result, COOs and operations departments usually end up being a mixed bag of Finance, People, Customer Success, Legal, Business/Revenue/Sales Ops, Strategy, [insert any number of other ‘back-of-house’] responsibilities.

For this reason, I’ve always called Operations the “land of lost toys."

This doesn’t mean the COO role isn’t critical. It’s arguably one of the most important. It is also one of the most unglamorous and thankless. Because it sits across and within teams, great COOs are like glue. They are responsible for processes, metrics, organizational efficiencies, optimizations and structure. Ironically, if done well and at scale, COOs can effectively make themselves redundant.

(Turns out everyone is replaceable after all….but this is a story for another time.)

Of course, like anything in life, the fractional model can work. But in my experience, it is neither interesting for the person or efficient for the organization.

If you pitch a fractional role at a smaller company, most likely the work will be administrative. If you're pitching yourself as a fractional COO for a larger organization (when a COO is a senior, broad spectrum role), you will likely be more of a leadership coach and/or working on a time-boxed consulting project. You are not actually embedded into the organization.

You can’t be fractional glue.

I’ll jump off my soapbox now and open the floor for debate.