During our Accountability Chart session, two of our senior leaders refused to give up their legacy operational seats, creating defensive turf wars. How do we break through this roadblock?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Turf wars happen when leaders tie their compensation, status, and identity to their functional titles instead of the health of the enterprise. In growing companies, early leaders often hold three or four hats, covering everything from sales to account management and operations. When you introduce an Accountability Chart designed for future scale, asking them to surrender a seat feels like a demotion.

To break the logjam, take personalities entirely off the whiteboard. Follow the strict EOS rule: build the chart for the business first, without any names attached.

Define the structure necessary for the business to double over the next three to five years. Clarify the five primary roles for each seat. Once the seats are established and agreed upon by the Integrator and Visionary, only then do you match people to seats using GWC:
- Do they Get the seat intuitively?
- Do they Want the seat genuinely, or are they holding onto it out of fear?
- Do they have the Capacity, including time, skill, and emotional endurance, to execute at an elite level?

If a leader wants to keep two major seats, explain the mathematical reality: a company cannot scale if an executive is dividing their attention across fifty primary responsibilities. Give them a choice. Let them select the single seat where they provide the highest leverage, and begin recruiting or promoting into the other seat. If a leader still refuses to collaborate, the Integrator must make the hard call. The chart serves the business, not individual egos.