Without Operations, a Business is a Group of Actors With No Stagehands

What is Operations?

“Everything that happens within a company to keep it running and earning money.” -Mitchell Earl

This is a great definition of operations given by the COO of Praxis. Defining operations is something that can be kind of tricky but this quote really does a good job.

Most of the time operations work happens in the background where no one sees it. But this is exactly the way it should be.

If your operations team is working smoothly, they should go unnoticed to anyone on the outside. Because if your operations team is being noticed, usually something isn’t working right. This means the business won’t run efficiently and it won’t be earning money.

Operations are the Stagehands of the Business World

Operations workers are the stagehands in a play. If the actors had to place everything on the stage for the next scene there would be long breaks between scenes. But because the stagehands are working in the background, the show goes smoothly. The actors have one job: acting. And the stagehands have another: making sure the actors have a place to actually act.

As an actor myself, there’s no way a show would be enjoyable or successful without stagehands. They make the transitions from scene to scene smooth and efficient. I can’t imagine having to both act on stage and then have to move everything around between scenes. That would be TERRIBLE!

Likewise with an operations department. The people in that department need to “set the stage” for their marketers or salespeople. Their job is to make the other department’s jobs easier and thus making them more efficient. Imagine if a marketer had to build his own program to create graphic designs. They wouldn’t have time to create the actual designs because they’re too busy creating the program! This is not an efficient way to run a business.

Another example is if a salesperson’s phone stops working but then he has to fix his own phone. What if the salesperson doesn’t know how to fix phones? This is where an IT person would step in and save the day.

This brings another good point to the table. There are many sections in an operations department. I just mentioned IT, but you could also include Human Resources, Finances/Accounting, and Training, among others. As a business grows these positions can become their own departments. But in the early stages, there might be a few people having to be an Accountant and a Trainer.

Important Skills

Now that we have a general idea of what operations is, what are some of the skills, soft and hard, that you’ll need to have a successful career in operations?

• Problem Solving

This really goes without saying. Problem-solving is the main function of operations. You need to be able to fix the salesperson’s phone or figure out how to expedite a marketer’s ability to get ads out there. If you can’t solve problems very well you’re probably not going to make it in this department. The other thing is knowing how to foresee problems before they arise. Which also sounds like customer success. A good way to look at operations is that they’re the customer success department for all other departments in a business.

• Attention to Detail

This goes along with problem-solving. The details matter because if you miss a key detail in a situation, you could make the wrong decision and lead the business in the wrong direction. I’ve seen how the details matter in my experience working at Chick-Fil-A. If I’m taking orders in the drive-thru and someone comes up to me who’s truck is too big to fit through, I need to make sure in the description of the order that the people inside bagging the food know this order isn’t in the drive-thru. If I just mark the order the same as any other order, they’ll be wondering where this person is. Which in turn will make the customer unhappy because they’re having to wait for their food longer. But by adding what seems like a small detail, the customer will leave happy and my co-workers inside won’t be confused.

• Strong Written and Verbal Communication

This is important because you need to be able to communicate with your team members with regard to important decisions or changes being made. Strong communication is also important for training a new hire. A solid foundation for a new hire is key to them being successful and if you can’t clearly tell them the ins and outs of how your company runs things, they may get off on the wrong foot. Going back to my personal experience working at Chick-Fil-A, I’ve seen how setting a good foundation is key for your future in that business. When a trainer is teaching a new hire they need to communicate the right way to do things, otherwise, that new hire will set bad habits. And it’s hard to break a bad habit. Things like making the lemonade wrong, or not cleaning a dish properly all can affect the operations of a Chick-Fil-A.

• General Tech Savviness

The knowledge of using different systems like Hubspot or Excel is key to being successful in operations. If you don’t know how to use software systems like those then you won’t be able to help the business run as efficiently as possible. Even if you’re not an IT person you still need to know how to use these systems.

• A Knowledge of all Parts of the Business

Knowing what the marketer or salesperson does on a daily basis is important to be able to help them work efficiently. If you don’t know what their job entails, how could you help them solve a problem? So having this knowledge of all parts of the business is the end-all, be-all of operations.

In Conclusion…

Operations may happen in the background, but without it, a business will suffer. A company has to run efficiently or it won’t make money. If the company has nowhere to “act”, how can the show go on? As the saying goes, “the show must go on.” Well, not without operations it doesn’t.