Exclusive Interview with IceWarp COO Petra Novotná
The position of Chief Operating Officer can be a daunting task, no matter the size of the company. But over her 10+ years as IceWarp COO, Petra Novotná has learned many lessons worth sharing.
Hindsight is 20/20
Petra Novotná received her master’s degree at the Prague University of Economics and Business before immediately linking up with the future founders of IceWarp. Having found initial success and good team symmetry on another project, Petra was invited to be the first COO of the company back in its infancy days.
Fast-forward 10 years, and IceWarp has grown exponentially. When asked how “Operations” have changed over the years, she recalled the following.
“I finished my studies and received the role of IceWarp COO almost immediately. In those days, the company was just starting, and even as it grew over the years, our operations went through several phases.
One example is when IceWarp reached a point having multiple entities in different countries. We were based in Prague with offices in the US, India, and elsewhere. Each of these units used to work completely separately, and it wasn’t until later that we realized it was more efficient to keep the overall control and management in one spot, unifying the various offices. Now, items like reporting, financing, and our operating and support systems are all under one roof.
We got rid of this “everybody for themselves”-kind of setup and moved to one that better promoted team unity and togetherness.”
Like a Well-Oiled Machine
Throughout her interview, it became obvious for any company to achieve success, it has to prioritize team chemistry. Petra referred to this concept many times, highlighting the fact when discussing a candidate’s potential for being hired.
“The most important thing is finding people that fit well within the already existing team or department dynamics. It can be hard at times, especially when a candidate perfectly matches all the criteria we’re looking for, but they’re just not the right fit with the other coworkers. Sometimes, this hiring process even falls on my desk. The HR department might feel uncertain about how well a potential employee would take their place in a specific team, and it’s up to me to get a feel for them and how they might perform in that environment.
It may sound a bit harsh at first, but anyone with leadership experience understands how impactful it is to have every team member locked in and on the same page. It’s this type of synergy that we’re striving for, and every new piece of the puzzle has to fit correctly.”
Problem-Solving
Even with this ideal concept of teamwork at the forefront of Petra’s onboarding process, she still admits such a delicate balance can be difficult to find. One issue she’s run into as IceWarp COO is the flow of work responsibility and information from one department to another.
“I’m really proud of the sense of urgency and chemistry we’ve cultivated in many of our teams. But just because one department has a known, specific way of getting things done doesn’t mean that it transfers well to other departments.
We’ve actually even attended some off-site trainings focused on this very problem. There are times when one team finishes their portion of a certain task, but somewhere along the line, the responsibility for that task gets stuck during handoff. It seems that no matter how perfectly you’ve mapped everything out on paper, things can still go array when you introduce the human factor. But this only motivates us to continue working on the problem and finding solutions.”
A Word of Advice
With so much experience over the years, anyone interested in working at IceWarp or similar companies stands to learn a lot from Petra. When asked about the qualities she’s looking for in new employees, she described how a well-crafted onboarding process can make all the difference.
“We’ve spent a lot of time on our onboarding, including an internal HR system where new employees receive all the information before they even start. And not just information about IceWarp as a whole but about their specific role and team.
This is ideal because we need people who are ready to start working from day one; we’re not really looking for slow learners here. But with that said, it’s also important not to swing the pendulum in the whole other direction. If you’re a new employee and you hit the ground running, trying to tackle ten different projects at once, you’ll only end up biting a small piece out of each, never actually finishing any of them. Take a moment to breathe, look around you, pick one task or project where you know you can make an effective difference, and see it through all the way to the end. It’s these kinds of gradual but meaningful steps that create impactful employees.”
