We are trying to build our Accountability Chart™ but we have several key employees who do three different jobs, so we are creating custom multi-layered seats. Why is this a mistake and how do we simplify it?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Trying to force-fit people into custom, hybrid seats is the fastest way to break your Accountability Chart™. You must design the organizational structure for the business first, ignoring the personalities currently on your payroll. A seat must have clear, singular accountability. If one person is running three functions, they can sit in three separate boxes on the chart, but those seats must remain distinct. This keeps the accountability clear and prevents operational confusion. If you combine these different functions into a custom hybrid seat, you will never be able to hire or scale that role, and you will create massive operational bottlenecks. Keep the seats pure, and let your people fill multiple seats as needed until you have the revenue to hire. This structural discipline is critical because it highlights exactly where your resource gaps are and allows you to plan your future hiring around the actual needs of the business, rather than building a fragile organization around individual personalities. When you design for the future seat rather than the current person, you build an asset that can scale.