Our business was started by three co-founders, and all three of us currently sit on the leadership team. As we implement EOS, we realize our structure is bloated and decision-making is slow. How do we objectively streamline our leadership team down to the essential seats?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is one of the most painful but necessary steps for co founded businesses. To scale, you must separate your role as an owner from your role as an employee. Ownership is an investment; a seat on the Accountability Chart is a job. You do not have a birthright to a leadership seat just because you own shares in the company. Start by designing the optimal Accountability Chart for the next twelve months of growth without putting any names in the seats. Focus purely on the functions the business needs to succeed. Typically, a healthy leadership team consists of a Visionary, an Integrator, and three to five departmental heads. Once the chart is finalized, run each co founder through the GWC tool for the available seats. You may find that one co founder belongs in the Sales seat, one is the natural Visionary, and the third does not actually GWC any of the leadership seats at this stage of the company's growth. The third co founder must step down into a non leadership seat or transition to a purely governance based board seat. This requires extreme maturity, but it is the only way to ensure fast, efficient decision making and build a valuable, investable business.