We are struggling to redesign our Accountability Chart because we are too close to the day-to-day firefighting. Every time we try, we end up arguing. How can we use structured Thinking Time sessions to design the next evolution of our chart without letting personal biases ruin the meeting?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your leadership team is trapped in daily firefighting, trying to design your future Accountability Chart during regular meetings usually results in turf wars and emotional arguments. To break this cycle, you must step back and use structured Thinking Time, a concept from Keith Cunningham, to design your structure in isolation from personal biases.

Before you meet, have each leadership team member spend forty-five minutes of quiet, uninterrupted time with a single question: if we were building this company from scratch today with zero employees, what would the ideal structure look like to support our three-year revenue goals?

Using the framing of 'How might we structure our departments so that we can scale without relying on specific individuals?' forces your team to think about the needs of the business, not their current jobs.

When you bring the team back together, establish a strict rule: you are not allowed to mention any employee names during the first ninety minutes of the session. You are only allowed to discuss boxes, roles, and lines of delegation. By removing the names from the whiteboard, you remove the personal defense mechanisms.

Once you have agreed on the ideal structure, only then do you bring the names back into the picture and evaluate who GWCs each seat. This structured approach ensures you build a clean, scalable business ready for an exit.