As we meet with more and more high growth companies, one thing is becoming clear: strategy and operations leaders are driving the evolution of how we build businesses.
Gone are the days where strategy and ops is solely responsible for retroactive reporting or simply adding process and red tape. Today, the best strategy and ops teams are often the most forward-looking part of your business. From unlocking growth opportunities to thinking about how to build teams in a way that allows the company to thrive, strategy and ops are bridging the gap between long term vision and day-to-day execution.
As our most recent guest on Aspiring Ops, Lindsay Soergel, put it so eloquently, “The best operational people are really connectors. They are able to see horizontally and vertically within the organization. They are able to see themes that other people might miss.”
Throughout her career in strategy and ops, Lindsay Soergel found her purpose in work and simplified it into two verbs: connect and transform. From leading change inside some of the most prominent Fortune 500 companies like Westinghouse, PNC, and Equifax, to building strategy for leading technology companies, such as Headspace, Lindsay has helped pave the way for what strategy and operations looks like today.
On this episode of Aspiring Ops, Lindsay shares how casting a vision for the future and building companies with designed thinking can help any company take the next step in their journey.
Often strategy and operations leaders are referred to as ‘generalists’. And while the ability to work across different areas of the business is critical, as Lindsay shares, it’s so much more than that.
In working across different teams, flexing horizontally and vertically, Lindsay is able to see problems and opportunities through the different perspectives of her team members. Further, it helps her establish an understanding as to why someone could be reluctant to go down a given path or why a team might be bullish on a potential opportunity.
It isn’t just enough to work effectively across teams and execute projects. Strategy and ops leaders have to be able to connect on a deeper level with teams to truly identify the opportunities that exist within a business, and moreso, when those opportunities arise, be able to empathize with different teams or stakeholders in a way that unites everyone around a common goal.
So often the best strategy and operations leaders have a driving curiosity that leads to exploring other areas of the business and a willingness to step into the unknown by simply volunteering for everything.
Interested in learning more about Linsday or her advice for strategy and ops leaders? Follow her on LinkedIn.
Want to learn more about how Elate is working with other strategy and ops leaders? Request a sneak peek today.
