I know that look—the one that says, “I hear what you’re saying, but you folks in the engine room will never really understand.” I’ve been on the receiving end more times than I care to admit. On one memorable occasion, someone in the background—hardly discreet—whispered, “Isn’t this a Sales event? Who invited Operations?”

Of course, the rise of Agile ways of working and cross-functional teams has changed things for the better. Collaboration is stronger, knowledge gaps are narrowing, and relationships are being repaired. Yet, when it comes to executive appointments, we so often revert to type. Supervisory boards and HR committees still reach for the old rules of thumb: when times are good, appoint a CEO from Sales; when times are tough, go with Finance. It’s high time we questioned such simplistic heuristics.

Of course, I am heavily biased. Not only because I have spent a lot of my career in CIO, CTO, COO and transformation domains, but because I strongly believe that in our times of continuous transformation, organisational value creation is shifting from the glamorous front-end to the uncelebrated back-end. As Dave Ulrich once pointed out, the competitive advantage of modern organisations is based not on individuals, but on organisational competencies. It requires the fruitful combination of processes, systems and people to craft the capacity to learn and develop fast and continuously, always leveraging the benefits of ever-improving technologies. Equally, the increasing demands for organisational resilience, risk management, security and data are becoming core to many industries. Hence, it is not enough anymore to just have a great sales plan and market your products well—deep customer understanding and innovation are often a result of the unglamorous work in the service centre, rather than the high-society sales pitch on the golf course.

But then, things are never quite so simple. COOs are often engineers who can enumerate in painstaking detail all the reasons something cannot be done, while Sales people tend to point ambitiously to the stars, acting as though whatever they decree should simply happen. Over the years, I have encountered my share of Sales colleagues quick to throw “shit over the fence” toward Operations, making themselves scarce whenever a dirty deal inevitably exploded. I have also observed Sales-CEOs far more adept at talking big and thinking big about themselves than at actually accomplishing anything big. Of course, the truth is often—quite literally—in the middle. Still, when it comes to core skills, Sales people are frequently trained to be master manipulators—of budgets, people, and customers—competing positionally for the next big deal and their next promotion. People management in Sales often comes down to weekly charts: bottles of champagne for the top ten performers at year’s end, while the bottom ten percent are quietly handed over to HR. In contrast, Ops managers are typically coached to build and collaborate—always seeking to connect people, processes, systems, and data to the larger organisational vision. Here, people management is a complex, intercultural craft, centred on the development of a sustainable professional practice.

Which brings me to my main argument for revisiting our anachronistic selection mantras. Beyond the urgent need for many businesses to move from a paradigm centred on strategic marketing to one that cultivates continuous organisational learning and innovation, there is also an emerging ambition to build organisations that serve all stakeholders. Achieving this demands the ongoing transformation of the organisation-as-practice—a shift that requires the right mix of skills. And while it is certainly challenging for some COOs to master strategic, big-picture thinking or to sell complex deals, it is often even more difficult for Sales teams to “make chocolate” out of process and technology details, or to develop truly outstanding people development skills. And in the end, any organisation is only as good as the people it “creates.” There is a certain irony in the fact that while Sales oversees revenues and COOs manage costs, somehow, the typical Sales mindset often reduces people to expenses, whereas in Operations, people must be fully developed as human beings to continually improve the shop.

At the end of the day, there are no perfect choices. What matters most—far beyond organisational siloes or formal titles—is the right blend of skills, experience, and character to guide our organisations into the future. Still, if you asked me, on a cheerful Friday morning like this, to wager on which role holds the most promise for producing truly transformational CEOs—choosing between Sales, Finance, and COO—my bet would be firmly on the latter. Not only are COOs generally more cost-effective (and more humble), they are also uniquely positioned to deliver sustainable value for money. So here’s to all the remarkable colleagues and friends working in Operations, who too often remain hidden away at the end of some forgotten corridor: keep up your great work!