Ops Generalist Role at Taxwire

My friend Andrew, the CEO of Taxwire, is hiring an ops generalist.

You'll be the first full-time ops person on the team and work closely with Andrew to scale the broader company ops. They're looking for someone with roughly 3-5 years of banking, consulting, and/or startup ops experience. JD here. 

Reach out to [email protected] and mention this newsletter if you're interested.

Therefore, regulating your nervous system is one of the best things you can do as an operator.

Step 1: Recognize you have the problem in the first place 🪞

Some CEOs figure this out quickly. Others aren't ready to confront the truth, so they're not ready for above-the-line leadership.

I've had coachees quit because I told them the truth and it was too hard to look at. They thought I wasn't solving their problems, so they left.

My job as a coach is to be honest with my coachees. If someone isn't willing to change, no amount of coaching will help.

The first step is noticing. Notice when you're angry. Notice when you're reacting instead of responding. Notice when your emotions are running the show.

When you notice you're angry, ask yourself: How did I cause this issue myself? Is there really something to be angry about here, or is there something deeper?

Identification comes first. You can't change what you don't see.

Step 2: Trace the anger back to its source 🔍

Once you can identify when you're angry, the next step is understanding where it comes from.

Ask yourself:

• Am I tying my self-worth to this business?

• Is this mistake really existential?

• What am I actually afraid of here?

For most people, anger is a defense mechanism. It protects you from feeling inadequate, from confronting your own insecurities, from admitting you don't have all the answers. You probably know someone who gets angry when they feel insecure.

In my example earlier, Erica realized her anger came from low self-esteem. Every mistake felt like proof she wasn't good enough. It was her mom’s voice that constantly told her she’d never amount to anything.

Once she could see that pattern, she could start to change it.

Show yourself some compassion. Extend some grace to yourself. You're human. You're allowed to make mistakes. Your business outcomes don't define your worth as a person. If your business died tomorrow, you would still be alive and breathing. You can always try again.

Step 3: Shift from tasks to outcomes 🎯

If someone is making mistakes and there genuinely are issues, ask yourself: How can I maintain a higher bar without robbing people of their autonomy?

There's a huge difference between dictating every task someone should do versus telling them the outcome you want and letting them work backwards on how to achieve it.

Are you saying: "Execute XYZ tasks"?

Or are you saying: "The company is moving in this direction. This direction is crystal clear. You have to achieve this thing. However you choose to achieve it is up to you. You can do whatever you want, but you have to own the outcomes fully and work as a team to achieve what the company overall needs."

The first approach breeds resentment and kills autonomy. The second approach builds trust and accountability.

When you're regulated, you can give people freedom. When you're dysregulated, you micromanage because you're trying to control outcomes to protect your own sense of worth.

Step 4: Do the inner work (this is lifelong) 🧘

The operators who receive this work well usually work with a therapist. They practice self-awareness. They stop blaming everybody else for the issues that come up. They take responsibility.

They see themselves as the reason problems are happening, not other people. If they hired the wrong people, they fix that. But they don't let their anger affect their decisions.

They don't create lots of rules to cater to underperformers.

Instead, they optimize for hiring really great performers and say: "You're allowed to have as much freedom as you'd like, but that freedom will be extended to you on the condition that we expect results."

The great performers thrive on that autonomy, and the underperformers are quickly let go or self-select out. But the rules of autonomy don’t change just because of one bad underperformer.

This is a lifelong process. It's not a quick fix. It requires ongoing work.

Try my Delphi

Want to ask me a question between issues? I now have a Delphi profile you can chat with anytime for answers in my voice. If you’re an operator or Chief of Staff working through a situation, try it here.

Want more operational content?

Check out Coaching Founder for downloadable Notion templates and write-ups on how to level up your execs, your teams, and yourself.

About Regina Gerbeaux

Shortly after her role as Chief of Staff, then COO, she opened her own coaching practice, Coaching Founder, and has worked with outrageously talented operators on teams like Delphi AI, dYdX, Astronomer, Fanatics Live, and many more companies backed by funds like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz.

Her open-sourced write-ups on Operational Excellence and how to run a scaling company can be found here and her templates can be found here.

She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, daughter, and dog, and can be found frequenting 6:00AM Orangetheory classes or hiking trails nearby.