We are designing our first Accountability Chart and my leadership team is getting highly emotional because they are trying to protect their favorite employees and find seats for them. How do we force ourselves to design the structure first and worry about the people later?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When building your Accountability Chart, emotion is your greatest enemy. If you design seats around the people you currently have, you will permanently codify your existing organizational dysfunctions. To break this habit, you must implement the clean sheet of paper exercise.

Start by removing everyone's name from the board. Imagine you are building this business from scratch today with unlimited resources. Ask yourself what functions are absolutely necessary to run this business effectively. Focus purely on the seats and the five major roles that define each seat.

Once you have designed the ideal structure, and only then, do you begin the process of placing names in seats. You will inevitably find that some of your favorite people do not fit the new seats, or that you have gaps you need to fill. This is where the Right Person, Right Seat tool comes in.

By separating structure from people, you gain the objectivity needed to scale. It allows you to make hard decisions based on what the business requires to grow, rather than what keeps your team comfortable. Remember that the structure must serve the business, and the people must serve the structure. If you compromise on this sequence, you will build a fragile organization that relies on individual personalities rather than systemic strength.