A day in the life of... a Chief Operating Officer

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TCT's 'A Day in the Life of...' series has been primarily launched for college and university alumni to better understand what career opportunities in additive manufacturing (AM) are available to them. Throughout the series, TCT will spend time with a host of AM professionals to communicate what their day-to-day tasks are, what kinds of teams they work within, what they have learnt on the job, and how they got to where they are today. In this instalment, Janet Dickinson of contract manufacturing firm Endeavor 3D explains the role of a Chief Operating Officer (COO).

“I can’t overstate how much of a people person Janet is. I think that sets a great example of how we communicate internally and externally to our customers. For us, it’s more than delivering parts. We form partnerships with our customers, working alongside them every step of the way. Janet’s approach to communication reflects this mindset and it’s something we carry into our customer relationships.”

It is not a prerequisite to be this way. If you were to Google what a COO does you’ll find it’s largely about strategizing, crisis resolution and evaluating company performance. It involves data analysis, decision-making, process optimisation, and administration tasks. Important work for the function of a business, yes, but reliant on interpersonal skills, not necessarily.

However, that might be what separates the good from the great. The technical skills can be trained, but the aptitude for building and maintaining relationships is something more natural. For Janet Dickinson, it’s the combination of both that has led her to where she is today – COO of a contract manufacturing startup.

“As a newer company that started in 2020, my job as COO isn’t necessarily typical,” she says. “My role is to guide and manage by leading with our core values that we created as a team. In reality, that includes working closely with everybody to solve problems and step in where I’m needed.”

Q. What is the best thing about your job?

JD: I really like working with people and helping them to grow into their next position, their next place. I was very fortunate to have good mentors and that's my mission now.

A TYPICAL DAY

As Endeavor 3D’s COO, Dickinson’s presence is needed everywhere – whether at home in California, on-site at the Atlanta factory, visiting a customer in Europe, or representing the company at a trade event. Typical days therefore don’t exist for Dickinson. However, when possible, she starts her day by attending the morning production meeting. Here, Dickinson is in troubleshooting mode, wanting to hear of any issues with IT and any other technical systems so those can be addressed immediately.

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By mid-morning, she shifts focus to customers and partners, prioritising relationship building. Here, she takes a hands-on approach to troubleshooting, identifying and IT or technical system issues that need immediate resolution.

Either side of the lunch break, she’ll catch up on emails, before making the effort to speak to as many Endeavor 3D managers as she can during the afternoon. “I call them my captains,” she says. “It’s a nice way of putting people in a group of leaders.”

Again, this is information gathering. Finding the problems, considering them, taking action.

“I always look for smoke in the business, because you want to see the smoke before the fire,” she explains. “I ask for any operational issues to come to me directly. If there’s something I can help with, I’ll handle it immediately because it has to happen.”

The rest of her day is dedicated to tackling these challenges, whether it be a quick-fix or a longer-term project. While the initial foundation of Endeavor 3D was laid four years ago, the nature of a startup means the work next stops. Dickinson is responsible for developing programs for continuous improvement in the manufacturing process and customer experience, while doing whatever she can to help drive cost-effective repeatability for every project Endeavor 3D is fulfilling.

Q. Why should people want to work in this sector?

JD: Manufacturing is the key to every country and every community. If you're the type of person who wants to work hard every day and be committed to something, then manufacturing is a great place to be.

THE ROLE BEYOND THE TITLE

Dickinson was brought into the company in September 2020 by CEO and former colleague Phil Arnold, initially as Chief Revenue and Information Officer before transitioning to the COO role. She reports directly to him, and managers in several departments report up to her.

Operations, production, technology, quality, R&D, IT, accounting and HR all fall under her supervision, with marketing also previously coming under her remit.

She sees her main responsibility as doing whatever she can to support the staff within these departments, from long-term mentorship to short-term problem solving. The COO role ensures she’s in regular contact with the captains heading these departments, but Dickinson also seeks to support ‘just about anybody’ in the business.

Dickinson, recognising her ability to set the tone for the rest of the company, places great value in communication.

“If you’re the person who can listen, understand and communicate effectively, then that is hopefully something other people will do too,” she explains. “One of my biggest skills that I’ve developed over the years is learning how to listen and communicate – and sometimes that takes a lot of soul searching on ‘what did I do to cause this problem?’ I think that you have to understand that communication is only if the person truly hears you.”

Another string to Dickinson’s bow is her awareness. As a member of the C-suite in a small company, her presence is often required in company meetings. Sometimes to lead, sometimes just to be another pair of ears in the room. But whatever her role, her words carry weight. And she appreciates that.

“Anybody at C-suite level has to understand that anything they say or do will be taken to heart,” she says. “It’s really important to know what to say and when to say it.”

She is not only aware of how to carry herself now, but also what it’s taken to get to this position. When sitting down with TCT to open up about her role as COO, Dickinson’s first remarks were that it  was not uncommon these days for people to expect to be in the C suite five years into their career. “Usually,” she says, “it doesn’t happen that fast.”

While patience and ambition don’t necessarily go hand in hand, she believes that a steady rise over two decades is likely the best preparation for such a role.

Q. What career advice would you give your younger self?

JD: Don't sweat the small stuff. We get wrapped up in not being at the right place yet, or things aren't happening, and even your biggest mistakes can be your biggest lesson. Think about what you're doing and be more intentional about where you're going.

THE PATHWAY

To lead effectively, you need to know what it’s like to be led.

Dickinson’s first role in the manufacturing industry was a job on the side while she was still in school. She grew up in customer service and she credits this with being the reason why she is so people-oriented today. Every action she takes in her role as COO, she hopes, is one that improves the day of others.

While still studying, IT was piquing Dickinson’s interest, and so through her job, she started gravitating towards systems and IT. As the business she worked for grew, she found herself extending her bandwidth to take on production floor systems too. Before she knew it, she was finding a career for herself. From Systems Coordinator, she was promoted to IT Director and then to Divisional Operations Manager.

As IT Director, she was responsible for establishing a Wide Area Network (WAN) to facilitate better communication between production sites in the US and Europe, before she began shifting towards the role of Operations Manager. She sat in that seat for more than ten years.

In 2016, the company she had worked at for 20 years, L. M. Scofield Company, was acquired by Sika USA, a supplier of specialty products and solutions for the construction, industrial manufacturing & automotive markets. Initially her role was to facilitate the transition of one company into the other – converging IT infrastructure, ERP software, phone systems and other processes – before she was appointed as Director of Commercial Services. Here, she created processes for the visibility of operational and financial requirements and was assigned to ‘special projects’ within other business units as her capacity for finding solutions to obstacles became apparent.

Eventually, an old colleague, Phil Arnold, offered her a first C-suite role. It was a step up, but by then, Dickinson had been making steps up for 20 years, embracing each new challenge and expanding her skillset as she went along.

To the current generation of young professionals, the start of her pathway might seem slightly unorthodox. Rather than spending several consecutive years in education before embarking on a career, Dickinson dived right in. But that journey is what shaped the operations management professional, and the person, she is today. 

“I pretty much went straight into work because, back in the day, computer science and similar fields weren’t well represented on college campuses,” she says. “I actually learned better by working in the workforce. I became Unix certified, I did remote desktop applications when they first started, I created WANs across [multiple] countries, compiled software from one operating system to another, I was learning so much more in the real world than I [would have] on campus. Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to do it. And I think one of my cores now is giving anybody the opportunity to go on their path.”

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