The bottleneck
When the role above the GMs holds the business back.
Restaurant groups call for a fractional COO for several reasons: a key operator left, new units are coming, ownership is changing, or there has never been an operator above the GMs. One case is the framework’s home ground, because it is a diagnosis before it is a hire.
Every symptom in that passage maps to a step. Authority sitting one level up is an Align problem. GMs running shifts instead of restaurants is a Generate problem. A bench that stops growing is an Elevate problem. None of them can be fixed well until Recognize has found which one is driving the others, which is why RANGE puts paid discovery first and makes the role decision only after it.
The five steps, inside the role
How a fractional COO runs each step from inside the role.
Read every unit before changing anything
The first week reads each unit in service, meets every manager and reads the numbers, then comes back in writing: what was found and where the work starts.
Write the decision rights down
Where the fractional COO decides, where they recommend and where the call stays with the owner are agreed in the scope before the work starts. Direction reaches the team only after owner and operator have agreed it.
Own two or three priorities
The things holding the business back, worked in order, starting in the units furthest behind plan and reaching the rest once those hold.
Set a cadence that does not move
The flash P&L read every Monday, a written note to the CEO every week, a one-on-one with every GM, and every period’s actions given an owner and a date.
Build the bench that takes the role back
Every manager placed on one page by performance and potential in the first month, a bench developed toward ready GMs, and a successor found on that bench or hired from outside.
Summarized from RANGE’s Fractional COO page, where the role is set out in full.
Why the order matters more here
Why reading first matters more for someone new to the role.
A senior operator arriving above the GMs is under pressure to fix something in the first week. Everyone expects it, and the obvious fixes are right there. The framework says read first. RANGE’s account of the first ninety days describes that first week as one that produces a read, not a fix.
The end state is Elevate, and it is written into the role from the start. The fractional COO is there to make the role holdable by someone else: the cadence running, the managers holding it, and a successor ready.
Three questions, three pages
RANGE’s three pages on the role, one for each question owners ask.
RANGE answers the three questions owners ask about the role on three pages. Start with the one you have.
- Fractional COO for Restaurant GroupsShould we bring one in? The role, the cadence, fees and how an engagement starts.
- Fractional COO vs. Full-Time COO: Which Does Your Restaurant Group Need?Fractional or full-time? The comparison, the readiness test and what each costs.
- The First Ninety Days of a Fractional COO in a Restaurant GroupWhat does one do? The term in order, from day one to day ninety.
Also on the subject
, Built Not Born
Every decision comes back to the one person who knows what it is for
Decisions climb to the top because the intent lives in one head, and this issue lays out the habits that hand it to the managers.