Future of Chief of Staff roles
As the title suggests, I often wonder what is the natural progression for people who join startups in Chief of Staff or even Founder's office roles? Do they move to a specialized vertical internally? Or do they move to other startups in CoS roles? Or they do their own venture (I like to believe this is still less likely). Have this thought because a lot of Tier 1 MBA, MBB consultant profiles have been moving to these roles and it really makes me wonder what path would the careers of these top talents take?
Kuch nahi hota bhai. Sab jagah ghuske khujate rehte wo log aur khud ko bohot important dikhake limelight pe aate hai. Simply jyada machana chahte aur naam kharidna chahte.
And that also, only till it benefits them financially with fat cheques. The moment a company gets into a little trouble, they would jump ships.
I mean wouldn’t you jump ship if you knew your company is going to get f**ked in the next few months and you are going to be the first to be laid off ?
CoS requires people skills, it requires you to manage people’s egos (at the level of national/ international business heads), it requires you to navigate through internal politics to get the job done, and you know anyways It is going to be a thankless job because at the end of the day your boss is going to take credit for everything that goes right and blame you for everything that goes wrong (those leaders are rare that take responsibility for their mistakes).
“Khud ko bht important dikhana” is a job requirement since you are working for the CxO office, you need to get things done fast. You will seldom get the time of the day with the people who are crucial to your project if you don’t establish your presence. You don’t have a direct reporting relation with them, hence getting them to help you requires either authority or familiarity (sometimes a mix of both).
And don’t get me started on the changing briefs from your boss, everyday there is a new priority while reporting on the older ones, it never ends.
Seems like someone got triggered because what I said was too true to handle xD
Listen, all these theories stay in theory. Being/seen busy and actually doing something valuable IC work are 2 different things.
There is nothing spacial about being the blamed for wrong/not appreciated for doing right. Indian companies and work culture have been like that for eternity for every single person. You don't need to play defensive or any special.
Baseline is, it's a glorified role with no proper impact because they have nothing other than getting into different people's way of work and intruct them. They are usually hired for incremental value growth and faster shipping but that rarely happens because the visibility of every particular team gets blocked and skin in the game gets diminished.
Now that you have written a noble to defend the role, I would say that's what you are and hence couldn't take the hard truth.
Anybody who has worked in startups closely and have had significant role in scaling up, would know that in 99% of the cases, it's a shitrole with shit people who are nothing but with zyada gaand me charbi and no hard skills to contribute to, hence they hide bhind "managing people" and end up asking for status updates. Lmao
Mostly CoS is a temporary stint after which you’re supposed to get back to whichever operator role you were in.
OR, you move under the COO on the track to become COO some day.
I’ve been in a COS role lately and I’ve been handling a special project to build Gen AI features. Mostly 0-1 PM role which involved building a small team, building POCs, customer feedback, competitive research, etc.
You could be driving many different special projects from time to time based on what the company needs. I previously helped the company raise money as a special project.
Mostly they lead special projects and initiatives internally after spending sometime as the CoS.
the Cos role is rarely able to contribute in 99% of cases. However in my experience, one time they are required is this: every department/function/team has hit their targets, but the company misses its targets (revenues/profits/scale)
time and again, even in smaller companies (series C onwards) I have seen this happen and a good CoS can help align things better.
you typically need someone who is a mix of right and left brain, understands most functions at a decent level, and has excellent empathy and great communication skills.
if you show impact, the best bit is you can then transition into the right function or role based on choice. It is like consulting (extend your options) in a startup environment.