When we try to update our Accountability Chart, my leadership team keeps designing seats around our existing employees and their specific skill sets rather than what the business actually needs to scale. How do we break this habit and design the right structure for our three-year vision?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Designing your Accountability Chart around your current people is a recipe for stagnation. To build an exit-ready organization, you must design the ideal structure first, completely ignoring the names of your current staff. This is the core principle of the EOS Accountability Chart. Start by taking your leadership team through a clean-slate exercise. Imagine you are starting the business from scratch today with the goal of reaching your three-year V/TO goals. Draw the boxes that are absolutely necessary to run that scaled-up business. Define the five major roles for each seat, focusing solely on accountability and results, not on who will fill them. Only after the entire structure is agreed upon and finalized do you begin placing names into the seats using the GWC filter. You will inevitably find gaps where current employees do not fit the new seats, or where critical seats are left empty. This is exactly what you want. It exposes your capacity constraints and talent gaps, giving you a clear hiring and development roadmap. If you force your structure to bend around your existing team's limitations, you will build a fragile business that buyers will avoid.