Our legacy Customer Service Director has been with us for twelve years and is the absolute heartbeat of our culture. However, our new automated ticketing platforms require advanced data analysis skills that she simply cannot grasp despite months of training. How do we apply the GWC tool here without destroying our team morale?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is one of the hardest calls an owner has to make. Your legacy leader is a perfect culture fit, but the business has outgrown her capabilities. When you look at the evolved seat on your Accountability Chart, you must use the GWC™ tool objectively.

GWC™ stands for Get it, Want it, and have the Capacity to do it. Your leader might get the role conceptually. She might want it desperately because of her loyalty and tenure. However, if she cannot master the data analysis required for your new automated systems, she lacks the cognitive or technical capacity for this specific seat.

Keeping her in a seat she does not GWC™ is unfair to her and damaging to the company. It slows down your operations and frustrates your team. You have two choices.

First, you can redesign your Accountability Chart to create a different seat where she does GWC™ all the roles, such as a customer relations or culture development seat. Second, if there is no viable seat that fits her strengths, you must transition her out of the business gracefully. Do not compromise your company standards out of sentimentality.