We have two co-founders who have been sharing the Head of Engineering seat on our Accountability Chart for years because we wanted to avoid hurting anyone's feelings. Projects are starting to slip, and the development team is getting conflicting directions. How do we break this shared seat?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Sharing a seat violates a foundational rule of the EOS® Accountability Chart™: only one name can be accountable for a seat. When two people share a seat, accountability is completely diluted. When things go wrong, they point fingers at each other, and when things go well, there is no clear owner to reward. Your development team is getting conflicting directions because they have two bosses with different priorities. To break this shared seat, you must separate it. Look at the core roles required for your engineering department. You likely have one role focused on long-term technical architecture and innovation, and another role focused on daily project management, sprint execution, and developer management. This naturally suggests two distinct seats: a Chief Technology Officer seat and a VP of Engineering seat. Once these seats are defined on the Accountability Chart™, run a GWC™ check to see which co-founder fits which seat. One might love high-level architecture and hate managing people, while the other excels at process and execution. By assigning each co-founder to their own distinct seat with separate accountabilities, you eliminate the confusion, speed up product delivery, and present a clean, professional structure to potential buyers.