When we try to run the structure-before-people exercise, our leadership team gets incredibly defensive. They start lobbying to keep their current direct reports and protect their territory, which derails our progress. How do we force our team to design the future Accountability Chart objectively?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To break through defensive behavior, you must detach your leadership team from their current titles, egos, and direct reports. Start your Accountability Chart session by laying down a strict ground rule: for the next two hours, everyone in the room is completely jobless. You are all owners and stewards of the business, designing a structure that will scale the company to its three-year target and maximize its exit value.

Remove all names from the board entirely. Focus strictly on the seats, functions, and roles required to run a business at your future revenue target. Ask yourselves what functions must exist to deliver your product, sell your services, and manage your finances at that scale. If a department head starts arguing to keep a specific reporting line because they like a certain employee, remind them that we are building the empty boxes first.

You cannot put a name in a box until the box itself is perfectly defined and agreed upon by the leadership team. Only after the entire structural layout is locked in do you begin the process of placing names into the seats. When you do this, you will inevitably find that some people do not fit the new seats. That is the point. Designing the structure around current personalities is how organizations end up with bloated, inefficient operations that sophisticated buyers discount during due diligence. Build the structure first, then place the people.